Driftwood (7 page)

Of course he can.
That was what he got for interfering—Flynn looked, if possible, even more mortified now than before. Thomas raised both hands. “Great. Do that. Handle him, please.”

He turned to go. A vast weight landed on his back. Without an instant's thought, he ducked, uncurled and sent Rob Tremaine flying over his shoulder to crash in a flail of arms and legs in the courtyard.

A roar of laughter went up. Thomas didn't think it was funny. He had no idea he'd remembered his unarmed-combat training, let alone that he'd be willing to use it on a helpless drunk.
First, do no harm
… He glanced at Flynn, whose face was still a white blank of shock. Self-disgust tore at him. He had got into a public brawl within half an hour of starting his first social endeavour in years.

He went to crouch by Tremaine, automatically beginning diagnostic checks—that his head wasn't damaged, that his pupils were the same size. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You startled me. Are you hurt?”

Tremaine's big fist shot up and fastened in the front of his shirt.

Once more, Thomas unreflectingly blocked the move, as he had with dozens of soldiers who'd grasped at him in extremity before he could get drugs into them. Rob's eyes blazed into his. What was the problem here? Yes, he'd caught him mid-tussle with Flynn, but it was hardly as if half his division hadn't been watching that too. Christ, was it because he'd recognised him? It couldn't be the first time for that, either, but Flynn was new to the district. Maybe Robert had told him a different story. “Stop it. Are you hurt?”

“What the fuck do you care?”

“The bare bloody minimum, in your case. But I'm a doctor.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tremaine relaxed his grip and fell back, sneering. “Right. I know you too,
Doctor.
Up in your ivory tower, drinking yourself to death. No girlfriend, no missus. Queer as fuck, I shouldn't wonder. Well, you chose the wrong night to crawl out and have a grab at my Flynn.”

“Oh, for…” Thomas sat back on his heels. He refused to turn and look around the courtyard, which had fallen silent to listen. He couldn't blame them. He had lived a quiet life, detached. Probably perceived as aloof. Their attention to this total and sudden exposure felt like hammer-blows to bruised skin. Flynn had stumbled over and crouched on Tremaine's other side, his face ashen. Thomas couldn't meet his eyes.

“Rob, please,” Flynn said unsteadily. “You're pissed. Thomas hasn't done anything to you. Let us help you up, and we'll go home.”

“Don't need any fucking help,” Tremaine growled, and rolled lithely to his feet. Thomas braced not to take a reflexive step back—or, which he was gathering would have been worse, a step to shield Flynn. He was bemused at the impulse. Tremaine was big, but Flynn's ability to take care of himself declared itself in every leanly muscled inch.

The three of them stood staring at one another, a grim impasse Thomas was at a loss to know how to end. He'd just have walked away from it, had not Flynn's distress latched itself into his heart, exerting an inexplicable steel-cable tug despite all the disasters being with him seemed to attract. “It's all right,” he said to Flynn softly, and reaching a hand to his shoulder, made his last mistake.

Tremaine slammed him up against the courtyard wall. If he heard Flynn's shout or felt his restraining grip, he gave no sign. “Right!” he bellowed, nose an inch from Thomas's. “I tell you what—you can
have
the little fucker. Good luck with him. Good luck with the nightmares and the novel fucking ways he comes up with of committing fucking suicide every other fucking week. Ask him why he doesn't fly anymore. You'll be a lovely bloody pair, actually—the fuck-up pilot and the alcoholic village quack.”

He let Thomas go. Turned, and began to walk off. Thomas watched, immobile. Everything had started going very slow, an underwater sensation he recognised. For once he welcomed the symptoms of oncoming fugue. Like Flynn's wave, the seventh wave, it would carry him out of here, what was left of his dignity intact. He would hear and see little, drive home efficiently, go to bed… Voices came oddly to him, distorting, crackling. He could see Flynn's face, also near to his now. He felt the warm brush of Flynn's palm down his cheek, almost heard his shocked, pleading voice.
Thomas, don't listen. I'm so sorry.

What was he sorry for? Thomas looked at him for a moment. It was almost a shame that in a second's time the cold would come down on him, extinguishing everything—rage, which he could do without, and even the exquisite pleasure of that soothing touch. He waited.

It didn't happen.

“Robert,” he said, low, smooth as silk. Tremaine was nearly at the door, but he turned. Thomas stepped up to him. He drew back his fist, gave the other man time to see it, to know his intention, and belted him as hard as he could in the face.

Tremaine went down—decisively this time—and this time Dr. Penrose did not care if he cracked his thick skull like a melon.

He eased the Land Rover carefully out of its space. He was stone-cold sober now, the alcohol metabolised off in the adrenaline still blazing through his system. The knuckles of his left hand were bleeding. He had disgraced himself, absolutely. He felt wonderful. Had he raised a brief, startled cheer from the watching crowd? He wasn't sure. Didn't care. He felt as if he'd punched the face of every army bigot who had ever called him queer, every supercilious public-school major-general who thought that doctors had an easy berth on the front line. Better still, every fear of his own that had been twisting up his life since his return. His heart was pounding. Drawing deep breaths, he wound down the window to gasp the night air, which was cool now, smelling of sea salt and freedom, and pulled out onto the road.

Movement in his rearview mirror. For an instant he thought that Tremaine might have followed him, and shuddered at the inward roar of anticipation the prospect caused. Easing off the gas, he let the Rover's engine idle.

Flynn appeared at the window, his hair disordered, breath coming ragged. “Thomas. Wait a second. Please.”

Thomas pulled up the handbrake. He watched as Flynn laid a hand on the window to steady himself, opened his mouth as if to explain. Then he visibly gave up and lowered his head so that his brow was resting on the back of his hand. “Oh God.”

Thomas looked at him. Whatever Tremaine's power over him, it could throw him into utter disarray. His breath was coming far harder and more ragged than his run from the pub could account for, and the knuckles of the hand Thomas could see were clenched white. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes, but…that was the worst social occasion of my entire bloody life.”

Thomas considered. He would have liked to say something to make him feel better, and cast back over his own bloody life to see if he could remember anything worse. He came up dry. “Yeah,” he agreed, after a few seconds. “Mine too. What's his problem, Flynn?”

“Whatever it is, will you at least believe that it's my fault as much as his?”

The street was quiet. Its single light caught shades of bronze in Flynn's hair. His bowed head was eloquent of something approaching desperation, surrender. Thomas resisted, and then did not resist, the urge to caress it, and Flynn looked up in surprise. “Whatever you say. Is he all right?”

“Yes, he… He's fine.”

“Good. Do you want me to run you back to the base? Give him some time to cool off on his own?”

Flynn laughed tiredly. “My address is bunk two, room six of the west barrack. His is bunk one. Will you just drop me off at the B&B in Boskenna? It's on your way home.”

Thomas thought, with fear and repulsion, of Flynn encountering Tremaine again tonight. Boskenna didn't seem far enough—and, as the only accommodation for miles around, not much of a secret bolthole. “Get in,” he said, and when Flynn had clambered up into the passenger seat beside him, he gave the wheel a thoughtful tap and turned to him. “Would it cause a diplomatic incident if you came home with me?”

“What, another one?” Flynn grinned. “Thanks, but you've had enough mud slung at you for one night because of me. If I end up spending the night in Sankerris…”

“I don't live in Sankerris,” Thomas told him. “I live in a half-derelict watchtower on the cliffs near Morvah. It's got a comfortable sofa and all-round views. It's peaceful. You'll be safe for tonight.”

“I… Thomas, Robert's not dangerous, you know.”

You could've fooled me
. Thomas bit it back. If he was, the only person who could find out and have it mean anything useful would be Flynn himself. Probably the hard way. “Whatever you say,” he said again quietly. “So, where to, sir? Bunk two, or Zillah Treen's B&B—which I believe has garden gnomes—or…”

Flynn laughed. “The derelict tower sounds good, if you're sure. Thank you.”

The Land Rover's headlights sturdily probed the night ahead. The creaking, road-rattled silence within it was not awkward, though it had prevailed for the last ten miles. Flynn had left his jacket behind in the pub. Seeing him shiver, Thomas reached to notch up the heater. He wasn't used to finding anyone other than Belle in his way when he made that move, and his wrist brushed Flynn's knee. Neither flinched, and Thomas sat up again, repressing a smile at himself. It was one step off a comedy grab for his knee while changing gear.

And that was not the worst of it. In the cab's increasing warmth, Thomas found himself involuntarily noticing Flynn's scent, which was warm and real beneath his aftershave. He smelled of his life, of the sea, a faint tang of engine oil sometimes prickling through.

Soon they would be home. Thomas wondered why the prospect of having a stranger in his orderly home overnight was not triggering all his alarms. In fact he felt weirdly serene. His knuckles throbbed, showing him a connection, and he smiled.

“That was quite a punch,” Flynn suddenly observed, as if reading his thoughts.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don't be. Like I say, it was a bit of a work of art. And he had it coming.”

“I'm glad you think so.”

Another silence fell, briefly this time, fraught with Flynn's tension. Thomas waited. “All that stuff he came out with,” Flynn said eventually, “about me, and the flying, and… Aren't you gonna ask?”

Thomas shrugged. The watchtower had appeared on the horizon, its western flank lit by the growing moon. “Assume you'll tell me, when you're ready. Will you get that gate for me?”

Chapter Four: Deeper

Flynn stood in the centre of the round living room. Belle was at his side. Thomas saw him reassessing her size, now that he was seeing her against domestic objects, as he had done himself on first bringing her home, her great shadow rising silently on the watchtower's walls. She liked Flynn, to Thomas's relief. He hadn't yet asked her to accept a visitor, but when he had unlocked the door to let them in, she had come to greet him as she had at the air show, her big head down, stringy tail waving. She was carefully sniffing Flynn over. Flynn looked flattered and nervous in equal measure.

Thomas smiled. “Are you two all right?”

Flynn glanced up. He did look a bit thrown, Thomas thought. More than could be explained by the attentions of Belle. “Yes, fine.” He flashed him a smile. “I miss animals, actually. I used to work with sniffer dogs before I started search and rescue.” Thomas waited for him to elaborate on this, but his expression became abstracted once more. “God, it's quiet here, isn't it?”

“Mm. Very. Scared the crap out of me at first.” Thomas saw him nod, as if in gratitude for the permission to be unnerved. “Can I get you a drink?”

“Please.”

“Make yourself comfortable. Have a look around.”

There wasn't much to see, but when Thomas emerged from the kitchen, Flynn was wandering around the room with some of the distracted awe he remembered from his own first sight of it. It had felt—not churchlike, but perhaps the way a church would feel to a religious man. He hadn't altered it much, beyond a couple of bright rugs, some whitewash on the walls, and such bookshelves as could be sensibly arranged against a curving surface. A bare space, old flagstones cool underfoot. In the winter, freezing. A small electric tank had been fitted to provide his hot water, and other than that, he had been too numb to care.

He held out the glass he was carrying. An ordinary white wine, though crisp and cold. It had been that, vodka or PG Tips, and on some level he couldn't quite yet understand, Thomas felt he wanted to make a good impression. “Here. Only civilised thing I've got. Do you like the place?”

“Oh. Ta.” Flynn took the glass, said suddenly, unguardedly, as if unaware he was voicing the thought, “I love it. I'd move in tomorrow.” He blushed to the hairline and ran a hand into his fringe. “Oh God. I can't believe I said that.”

I can't believe I'd like to ask you.
Thomas let his own surprise become a snort of laughter, which let them both off the hook. “Nor can I, but don't worry. It had a weird effect on me, as well.”

“Really? Not
that
weird, I shouldn't think.” He shook his head. “Makes me think of—being free, or happy, or…”

He trailed off, but Thomas, wanting to pursue the revelation rather than repress it for their mutual comfort, said quietly, “When does that happen?”

“What—free and happy?” Flynn glanced at him in surprise. “When I was flying, I suppose. Taking one of the Sea Kings up at first light.” He swallowed. “Not that I—well, Rob told you. I don't anymore.” This time when he fell silent, Thomas could see that a push for more would have hurt him. He nodded, waiting for him to find his way past the moment. His shadowed gaze found the piles of books that had not yet made it onto shelves. Thomas wasn't sure himself why he let them gather dust in piles on the floor, except that their disorder, unlike every other kind, was somehow bearable to him. Flynn said, smiling, “Did you just move in?”