Harper Fox Driftwood

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

supposed. Flynn, who knew by now his every fear, was in no hurry. Told him, between kisses,
that he would live with him forever in his world s-edge ruin.
Belle kept on barking. Aware that Flynn was watching him in tired amusement, Tom sat
her down in front of him and talked to her as he would to an intelligent teenager, patiently ex-
plaining that, since everything was all right, and he and Flynn needed their sleep, she should
really settle down now. It shouldn t have worked, but the poor dog listened to him with every
appearance of comprehension, and when he was finished, went and lay down in her bed in
the kitchen, tail tucked, ears clamped tight to her skull.
Tom shrugged, holding out a hand to Flynn. God knows. Come on, love. Big day for you
tomorrow. Today, actually, in about five hours time.
Tom, would you think I was off my head if I didn t take it?
What the reinstatement?
Yeah. I loved it, but& I love the rescue work too. Better, I think.
Tom smiled. It hadn t been his place to talk to Flynn about it, and he had wanted to see
him fully compensated by the service which had been so quick to send him down, but&
Whatever you want, he said, and Flynn came to him, as if he was fire in the darkness, sun-
shine in winter s heart. You re a good lad, Flynn.
And this wouldn t get them to bed any sooner, either, or at least not there to sleep. Care-
fully, deliberately, he disentangled them, pushed him in the direction of the stairs.
Quarter to four in the morning. Tom registered the time at the same instant as a warm, wet
press against his ear, and rolled onto his side, moaning. Flynn, love& What the fuck?
Something by the bed. Tom jolted upright in visceral panic, limbic brain seeing only the
wolf in the fold, a beast with glowing eyes. It took him a moment to recognise Belle, who was
too well-mannered ever to invade his room uninvited, and never came up during the night. He
felt Flynn s waking movement at his side, and he sat, gazing out at the red-tinged waning
moon, at its eerie light reflected in Belle s pupils. Her silence was eloquent.
Flynn, he said, after a few seconds. There s something not right.
Other than the fact that you mistook your bloody dog for me? Flynn enquired politely,
making him snort with laughter but then put out a hand to Flynn s arm, immobilising him,
listening.
I m serious. Something&
A tremor struck the tower. The hairline crack on the far wall, which over the past month
had expanded unnoticed to a rift an inch wide, gaped suddenly huge, in a gunfire-roar of fall-
ing masonry. The floor lurched.
Tom leapt out of bed. He grabbed Flynn, grabbed his dog and shoved them ahead of him
down the tower s spiral stairs. He tore open the great wooden door, which in these days of
healing was not always locked, any more than the dishes were always done or the bed linen
ironed. He pushed Flynn out into the night, barefoot out onto the wet turf, and together they
ran in Belle s wildly barking wake until they stumbled and fell in a tangle, catching at each oth-
er, scrambling a desperate few yards farther from the cliff s crumbling edge.
The tower went down in majesty. Her seaward side had collapsed, but she held her
ghostly moonlit form for five more seconds, while the cliff top avalanched away, cutting her
foundations from beneath her. Then, with a thunderous howl, she was gone.
Flynn and Tom clung together on the turf. Belle, having made her point, transformed to
her mute self and calmly came to sit beside them. Tom could not get breath into his
lungs or, when he could, it exited straight away in drowning gasps that suddenly for some
reason began to break into laughter. Oh& fuck, he managed eventually. Flynn& God,
Flynn, I love you! And Flynn, who over the last months had said it to him, affectionately and
often, never seeming to expect reply, turned to him in wonder.
Epilogue
Tom walked on the edge of the sea, which had restored the world to him. He was working full-
time in the Penzance casualty department now, and had less opportunity to wander the lonely
Porth beach with Belle, but the journey home was shorter, only ten minutes or so, in the re-
placement Land Rover he had bought when his insurance company finally decided he had not
flipped his last one off the road on purpose and paid up.
Wrestling a slimy stick from Belle s jaws so that he could throw it again, Tom cast an
amused look up to the car park where the vehicle was parked. She was similar in all respects
to the last, except that, to Flynn s bewilderment, he had chosen an older model still. Well,
where was the point in knocking the crap out of new models on these roads, he had explained
to him, and he had spent the rest of the payout on a custom-built rack for the Mazda to carry
Flynn s surfboard.
Ten minutes home, to the house on the beachfront he shared with Flynn. Neither of them
had lost their taste for world s-edge living, but this one was built on firm foundations, and al-
though it stood in stern isolation near the dunes, was within sight and a short drive of friends.
Of Victor Travers, whose business was once again Porth s main employer but did not keep
Vic from his duties as volunteer helmsman on the lifeboat; of Florrie s frequent dinner invita-
tions, to which Chris Poldue and Gavin Wilkes would turn up too, shy and formal with each
other even in this friendly company, but together at least.
Tom came to a halt on the sand. A familiar ragged-edged thump was beginning on the
edge of the wind, more a vibration than a sound, disturbing his eardrums and the marrow of
his bones. He looked up, instinctively reaching for Belle. He would never get used to it, he
knew. Never be able to see the Hawke Lake SAR chopper sweeping seaward without a pain
like ice in his heart. All the fears in Tom s life now were rational and quite real. Flynn, restored
to himself, was a force of nature, a fire that burned so brightly Tom could scarcely look. No
storm daunted him, no winter night so bitter that he would not haul himself reluctantly out of
Tom s arms to answer the call.
No. The cliffs here were steep and had bounced back the sound of the rotors from their
grey flanks Flynn was coming home. The Sea King appeared on the horizon, and he braced
up, grinning, waving wildly. It was Flynn s great joy in life to buzz him if he saw him on the
beach, to swing the great roaring craft as low as he dared over his head. Tom set off at a run [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne