Inconsolable

by Ainslie Paton

  “I know who he is.”

  Nat whistled like she was calling a cab, or wanting her dog to heel. “It’s an unbelievable story. And I’m pissed off I missed it. Nathan is so pissy with me I might be wearing both earrings for the rest of my life. When did you know?”

  “Keep your hair on. Only last night.”

  “Lucky for you. I was planning on throttling you in your bed. Assuming you ever sleep in it again. What do you know?”

  She hadn’t seen the story, but it was reasonable guess some digging would turn up Drum’s story like she had. “He’s Patrick Drummond, ex-CEO of NCR, who make Circa. He’s playboy rich and even smarter than I gave him credit for.”

  “Hah. But mad as a hatter.”

  “He’s not, he’s—”

  “Off his rocker. I don’t know what he told you, but he imploded. Went from being the whiz kid darling of the pharma market to being forced out by his own board.”

  “He got death threats.”

  “It’s a wonder shareholders didn’t hire snipers to take him out. He was on his way to destroying a blue chip corporation. The stock price plummeted. His board had no choice but to sack him.”

  The way Nat said it Foley could see all the reasons why Drum lived in a cave. “He didn’t want the damn drug to hurt people.” She could see why he took a world of guilt as his own.

  “I get that it did, but statistically, even if you attribute all the reported deaths to Circa, it’s nothing, and no different to what happens with a lot of drugs.”

  “He doesn’t agree those deaths are nothing.”

  Foley closed her eyes, this was difficult. People weren’t statistics, but averages drove decisions, even in her own work. The most successful programs she ran still got complaints. It was impossible to please everyone, so you pleased the majority.

  “Fole, I’m seriously worried about you.” Nat stopped being a journalist arguing her point and was a friend again. “Come home tonight, we need to talk.”

  But it wasn’t enough of an incentive. “I’ll be home when I’m ready.”

  Nat huffed and puffed. “I’m thinking of you, not a new headline.”

  “I know. But—”

  “But you suddenly became a qualified psychologist and you’re going to fix him.”

  “Nat.”

  “Tell me you’re not thinking you can fix him. Jesus, Foley, tell me you’re not thinking magical sex with you will make him abandon being a hermit squatter.”

  Foley pulled the phone from her ear. Couldn’t Nat simply be happy for her? Did she have to be so aggressively judgemental? Did Foley think for just a second loving Drum would suddenly restore him to normal?

  She was sitting on the stairs of his near empty mansion house, waiting for him to show up with home brand groceries he’d probably bartered labour for, when he could’ve bought the grocery store. She’d never skived off work before and she was perfectly happy with that. She was buzzing with the joy of knowing he’d come home, burn eggs and toast and they’d go back to bed and crawl inside each other again.

  She put the phone back to her ear. “What’s normal anyway?” She’d looked into Drum’s eyes and seen intelligence and humour, respect and love and nothing of his detachment from reality, nothing of his appalling self-destruction.

  “Shit, Foley.”

  “I have never hated you so much in my life.” She’d gone to bed with Drum and glossed over the humongous issue of his existence. “What am I going to do? I’m in love with him.”

  Nat sighed and that was it for sympathy. “I’ll get you some names. Referrals. I don’t know. I’ll ask around. You can’t kiss this better, Foley. Hang in there. Call me later.”

  Nat ended the call, but Foley had no time to rethink her day, Drum was back, ringing the front gate buzzer. She went down the stairs to let him in, opening the front door to discover not Drum, but a small tidy man in a very classy suit and frameless glasses. He was too immaculate to be Seventh Day Adventist, collecting for charity, or wanting her to switch electricity provider.

  She pulled the robe closed at her throat. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Alan Drummond, I’m looking for my son, Patrick.”

  Foley felt cold wash through her that had nothing to do with the outdoor temperature or her state of virtual undress.

  The man held his hand out. He didn’t look anything like Drum, she had the urge to ask for ID. She shook his hand. “He’s not here right now. I’m Foley Barnes. I’m.” Shit, fill in the blanks: naked under this robe, sleeping with your son, was once responsible for evicting him, in love with him. “I’m a friend of Drum’s.”

  “Oh, that’s what he’s calling himself.” Alan Drummond closed his eyes, relief in his expression. He put his hand out to steady himself on the doorframe. “Will he be long? I can wait in the car.”

  What would Drum want? Should she let his father, the man he built NCR with, the man who sacked him, into the house?

  “I don’t want to interrupt. But I haven’t known how to find Trick. I didn’t know about this house. He had a penthouse in the city. There was a story this morning’s paper and I thought—look, I’m sorry.” He turned to go. “I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Don’t.” She had to do something to help Drum. How wrong could it be to start with his family? “Was this address in paper?” She held the door open and Drum’s dad walked through, taking in the grand foyer and the staircase.

  “The street name was. I’ve doorknocked every house. I couldn’t find that cave this morning. I thought he might be there. I can hardly believe it. My son,” Alan’s voice wavered, he coughed, “living in a cave. This is my fault, you know. I pushed him too hard. I didn’t realise he was so affected. I thought he’d get past the stress and he’d be better. He was seeing a therapist, but he’s worse than I imagined. All this time I thought he was travelling, or holed up somewhere enjoying himself. I had no idea it’d gotten like this. Who did you say you were again? You’re not? He didn’t? I’m sorry, I need to sit down. I think I need a glass of water.”

  Foley led the clearly shaken Alan Drummond to the kitchen.

  “Trick is living here then. What happened to the furniture? Have you just moved in?”

  She poured him a glass of water. “Drum only uses this place occasionally. He regards the cave as his home.”

  “Oh my God.” Alan held on to the island benchtop and Foley wished she could offer him a seat. She didn’t know if she should feel compassion for him, or wary contempt.

  “I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing letting you in, Mr Drummond. I don’t know if Drum will want you here.”

  Alan nodded. “You’re right. He may not be happy to see me.”

  “I care for your son and I don’t claim to understand everything that happened, but I know he was deeply impacted. I want what’s best for him. The problem is I’m not sure what that is.”

  “He must’ve quit therapy. He shut himself off. I didn’t know. But I couldn’t be more surprised. Who did you say you were again?”

  “I’m Foley Barnes and I’m in love with your son, but I didn’t know who he was until last night. In a way, I’m as surprised as you are.”

  Alan took a big gulp of breath and let it out noisily. “Well, at least that hasn’t changed. His nickname wasn’t Trick for nothing. When he was a kid he was always inventing adventures. He was so independent, but I perhaps I did leave him alone too often. He was mature, capable, but the therapy I had suggested I wasn’t there enough for him, that for some reason, a grown man, he still needs my approval. I can’t pretend to understand it.”

  Alan looked her right in the eyes, and that was a gesture that was all Drum when he’d stopped trying to avoid her. “It’s true. I left him with his grandparents and a neighbour, and he was such a smart kid he ran circles around them. He thinks he’s disappointed me.”

  “He thinks you’ve disappointed him.”

  “Eh.” Alan blinked in surprise, then his face crumpled. “I had no
choice but to sack him. He had to understand that. I don’t know what he’s told you, but Circa has been evaluated by every independent body, every regulatory group out there and it’s safe, it meets the standards for acceptable use. That’s something Trick made sure of. But he was never satisfied, he blew it all out of proportion, he—”

  “Got death threats.”

  “Yes, but those—” Alan turned away, abruptly. “He said I didn’t understand and I don’t, I don’t. Trick was so clever, so strong. And he could be ruthless too. Nothing got in his way, that’s how we built a business from nothing in fifteen years, that’s fast for the industry, but he never cut corners. He never lost focus. He worked hard, he played hard. He could do anything he set his mind to. Type A personality and all that. But I don’t know how he got so broken and I don’t understand, I simply don’t understand, why he did this. Why he just can’t buck up?”

  Foley jaw was clenched tight, her fists were furled. She’d made a huge mistake and she’d never felt like whaling into someone before. Alan Drummond obviously thought his son was Superman and wasn’t prepared to admit to the existence of kryptonite. She wanted to slap him, kick him, punch him.

  “I think you should go.” She forced the words out through teeth that wanted to bite and tear. “I’ll tell Drum you came by. I’m assuming he knows how to contact you.”

  “He has to want to be helped. That’s what the therapists say. He has to want to rebuild a normal life. And yes, yes, he knows where to find me.”

  She walked Alan out. He was red-faced and flustered and she hated herself for acting on Drum’s behalf and getting it so wrong. The last thing he needed was the kind of disapproval his father offered under cover of redemption.

  At the top of the stairs there was a plastic grocery bag: eggs, bread, milk, tomatoes, mushrooms. There was a cardboard tray where two cafe-made coffees had sat. Only one remained.

  Alan looked out into the foyer. “He’s back.”

  Foley knew Drum had been and gone. “I’d like you to go, please.”

  Alan gestured to the grocery bag. “But—”

  “He’d be standing here if he wanted to talk to you. I’ll tell him you called.”

  She watched Alan leave in his big shiny car and then bolted upstairs to dress. She could scream. She had to find Drum and make sure he understood she hadn’t set him up again, make sure he understood she wasn’t siding with his father. Everything echoed in this place, he’d have been able to hear them talking from the landing, how much had he heard? She had to find him before some media posse did and made his life even more impossible.

  She dressed in yesterday’s suit and way the wrong kind of shoes for fast walking on grass and most certainly for climbing on rock ledges.

  She pulled the front door closed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get back in. There was a guy with a pro-looking camera leaning on a car parked four doors down. He looked her over when she closed the gate. She stared him out. She didn’t have time to waste. She hoofed it across the park, heels sinking in to the still dewy surface.

  At the railing she wondered if bare feet would be better. She should’ve left her hosiery off. She craned her neck to look down to the second ledge and seeing nothing but rock face, she called Drum and, much as expected, got nothing. He might not be here, but where would he go when he felt threatened? He had to be here.

  She ducked under the railing and moved to the edge of the first ledge where she’d be able to see more. He was standing at the cliff edge. Her heart punched against her ribcage and she stifled a cry. He wasn’t going to jump. He didn’t think that way. He wasn’t playing chicken with the edge, he was remembering why life was good. He still had the coffee cup in his hand. He must’ve heard her breathing, felt her alarm in waves of tension. He turned his head then shouted, “Wait there.”

  He came over the ledge the easy way and she would’ve thrown herself at him in relief if he’d been close enough. “Not the right shoes for this,” she said.

  “No.”

  Why wasn’t he close enough? What was with the one word answer? Once upon a time he’d offered his hand. He had them jammed in the pocket of his coat.

  “Your dad, he just arrived, I didn’t ask him to come.”

  “I’m not mad with you.”

  “You don’t think I sold you out again?”

  “I don’t think you ever sold me out. You did what you had to do.”

  “You are mad with me. You’re all the way over there.” She took a wobbly high-heeled step on uneven ground towards him.

  That got his hand out. She clasped it and he stepped towards her and the sense of dread she’d carried since seeing the dumped groceries dialled back to dismay, with a side menu of pissed off they were out here and not back in his glorious big bed.

  She looked into his eyes, “Hi.”

  He didn’t dodge the contact. “Sorry about breakfast.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Come back to the house and we’ll call it lunch.”

  “I can’t come back to the house.”

  “He’s gone. I asked him to leave.”

  “I’m not coming back to the house.”

  “I … Right, okay.” If he needed the safety of the cave for a while, that was fine. She bent her knee up behind her to take her shoe off.

  He caught her hand before she could get it to her foot. “Don’t.”

  They stared at each other. Foley’s stomach flipped. Drum was so perfectly calm, while she stood there like a stupid stork, wobbling about on one leg. He didn’t want her here. “Do you need time alone?”

  She brought her foot back to the ground; her pissed off caught in a rinse cycle of apprehension, making her feel irrationally sad. He could well have been angry with her, accused her of colluding with his father. Instead he was so remote she was awkward with him. She wanted the sleepy-eyed, purring man who’d been intense and fun in bed, but the Drum who stood in front of her wasn’t the man she’d lost earthly contact and found heaven with. “What did I do wrong?”

  He stroked a hand over her cheek. “Nothing. This is my fault.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  Drum’s hand went from her cheek to her neck, to her shoulder. He ran it down her arm to her waist, then tapped her side. “Tell me about this, on your skin.”

  Her idiot tattoo. “Juvenile stupidity. I’d spend the money to get it removed but you’re right, I need a new car first.”

  “You do need a new car.” He smiled at that. “What does it mean to you?”

  “Of all the things to want to talk about, my dumb tatt. Can we not?” Drum stepped closer and nearly all of him grazed all of her. It made it impossible not to answer his question. “I thought I was making a statement about looking for my soul mate.” She felt heat in her face, even the concept of a soul mate sounded all new age daft. “It was supposed to be deep and mysterious. You’d have picked it for my initial straight up, and for the naivety.”

  She could feel the weight of his palm through layers of clothing. “I picked it for your heart. It’s not stupid to want to find the person who understands you, who fits you. That’s why you made it shaped like a puzzle piece. It’s you.”

  “Please, next topic.” This was so irrelevant.

  “There’s no next topic for us, Foley. There’s no mystery, no fit and we knew it. We let it get out of control.”

  “No, no, no.” She put her hand to his chest. “You are not saying what I think you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying goodbye.”

  “No, no, no. Not now.”

  Panic didn’t feel like the Titanic landing on your head, it felt like being shoved into a matchbox. It wasn’t an intense weight to struggle against, it was feeling trapped. He was closing her in, giving her nowhere to go.

  “Not after last night, not after … Drum, don’t do this. We can work it all out. We can, I know we can.”

  “I feel safest, happiest, living in the cave. You can’t live there with me.”
<
br />   “Neither can you. Council are going to board it up. The metro media worked out who you are. They know all about Circa. They’ll come for you. You can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”

  He inclined his head, brows angled down, taking in that news, and she rushed on. “Come back to the house, or come and stay with me.”

  His hand tightened at her waist and he skimmed his nose along her temple. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You moved out for the sculpture walk, it will be like that. Nothing else has to change.”

  “Everything would have to change. How would your Nat take that? Would I live off you? Would I keep on my odd jobs? Would I need new clothes? Would I get to meet your mother? Foley, everything would have to change.”

  His breath was warm against her face. “And if we can be together, what’s so bad about that?”

  Drum went very still and the outside world crashed in: the sound of the sea, of birds, a dog barking, a man in Marks Park calling his kid, “Adam, Adam, don’t go too far. Stay where I can see you.”

  Drum breathed against her hair. “I don’t want to change.”

  “I’m not asking you to reconcile with your father or go back to your job, or start a new career.” She fumbled for his hand again and he let her hold on. “I don’t need you to buy me a new car, or bring me good wine. I don’t need your money. The changes you’d need to make are small. You don’t need to work. I make enough to support us. You don’t need to—”

  “You’d let me sponge off you, drag you down. You’d hate me inside six months.” Now he gripped her hand back. “You’re better than that.”

  “I love you and I’ll take you any way I can.” Stay, stay, stay where I can see you.

  He eased away, put space between them, an ocean of it, but he still held tight on her hand. “I don’t want that.”

  “Then tell me how you want this to go.” Don’t go too far.

  “I don’t want us. I don’t want you. We don’t fit, Foley. We never will. We took what friendship we had and pushed it too far. You only love the circumstance of me, the novelty of less ordinary. But that’ll wear ugly too soon and be a stain on what we had.”