Tainted Touch Read online

  I gape at him. “He did not tell you about that.”

  “Just a little casual Disney Princess banter between two dudes. What can I say?”

  “No, say no more, really. I’m good.”

  “Although.” His eyes dart about the vast expanse of the cathedral, from the high pipes of the organ to the faded velvet drapes of the altar. “You totally need to screw him in here. The atmosphere’s amazing, and think of all the random positions you could achieve with the–”

  In a very uncharacteristic move (for me, that is), I reach up to tap at his temple. “Are you sure you’re not still at work? The other work.”

  “I never leave.” He fakes a melodramatic sigh. “On that note…this is for Milleficent. Can you give it to her for me?” He drops the gift bag into my lap.

  “Mills? What is it?”

  “Essentials. Especially in her predicament.” He nudges my hand. “Go on, have a look.”

  The pink bag is thick, satin paper, tied neatly with a shiny white ribbon. I peel it open and peer inside at a collection of white card boxes embossed with gold writing. It appears to be a heap of Creme de la Mer products.

  “Aidan,” I say, incredulous. “You big…sopping pansy.”

  “I know, eh?” He rolls his eyes–apparently, at himself. “There’s something else at the bottom, but you need to keep it. Until she’s better. Until she decides what she wants to do.”

  I tuck the boxes aside and scrape a business card from beneath. For a second, I think it’s from his escort agency, and am about to whip it across his first available artery–but it’s not.

  “Merchant Deity at Law,” I read, narrowing my eyes at the smooth, contemporary font. “Is there a reason I don’t know about that she’ll be needing a lawyer?”

  “Two of them, to be precise.” Aidan’s smile returns. “Remember how I said I know some people? That’s the firm. I forwarded them the interview Milleficent sent me, the one she wanted me to do…she sent me her portfolio for the school paper. It was awesome. They loved it.”

  “Lawyers like escort interviews…?”

  He chortles to himself. “Well. Ahem. Point is, she’s a very clever girl. And they can always do with those…you know. For internships.”

  “Oh.” I blink at him, then back at the card. “She’d love that. But–but doesn’t Art have some, uh, issues with that place?”

  “He does. But people in glass houses shouldn’t throw glass dildos, so he can keep his bile to himself,” Aidan says cheerily. “Anyway. Without being rude, I have to run. Places to go, pensioners to blow, that kind of thing.”

  I turn my head very slowly. “I have no idea what to say to that.”

  “Nobody ever does,” he sings, leaping up. “Now. Be nice to my brother, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that doesn’t rule much out?”

  “Because you have a brain, Belle. Because you have a brain.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze, and starts to back away. “I need to leave before I start with my Lumiere accent.”

  “Aidan?”

  “Yep?”

  I haul myself up and come towards him, still wringing my hands. “Thank you. For everything.”

  He smiles again, genuine this time. It melts his brown eyes to Belgian chocolate. “It’s what I do. I’m the Fairy Fagfather.” His face falls, and he glances about. “Can I say that in here?”

  “Apparently. Just don’t get it on in a sleeping bag. You get seriously smote for that.”

  “No wonder he likes you–you use words like smote. Come here.”

  Bear hug time. Marvellous. I’ve been through so many conflicting emotions this weekend, I wouldn’t be surprised if I barely felt it–I’m practically numb. Aidan wraps his big arms around me, and I’m smothered in barely-contained manflesh and the scent of clean laundry. It’s oddly…nice.

  “Tell Milleficent I’ll try and visit,” he says into my hair.

  “I will. And thanks again.”

  He releases me with a little salute. “Never a problem.”

  Then he swaggers off down the pillared walkway, still smiling. He walks just like his brother, with this confident but understated grace to his steps. I wonder if he knows.

  After raiding my gym bag for tissues, I take a minute to just clean my face up–I’m a mess of dried tears. A few sips of water later, I’m about as composed as I’m going to get. Time to face the fresh air, the daylight, and the music. The fist around my heart has loosened, sucked back to rest at the base of my spine; Art still wants me.

  He thinks I’m perfect.

  I always thought he was perfect.

  I have skeletons to smash. It’s only fair.

  On the way out, I stop by the sand table to stab two spindly cream candles into its gritty sea. For each one, I shove a fiver into the donation box before striking the matches, and then I light one candle for Mills and one for Priya. The flames spark up against fresh wicks, spurting the smoky smell of clean, warm wax into the light cathedral air. I watch them burn for long seconds, just as Art once did, and find that calm fire comes to claim me. Beside each other, the two flames look like a pair of amber eyes, and they stare right back at me, curious. Waiting.

  Candles are like lighthouses, see; thrust forth to guide us, lights atop their mouths. But a candle doesn’t trap you within its walls–it burns down in the end to a pool of syrup and soot.

  A candle brings you home again, and then it sets you free.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Oh, how I love it when Drew answers the phone to me on the toilet.

  Not.

  “You’re gonna need to speak up,” he booms. “It’s all echoey in here.”

  Number of occasions I’ve missed the communal bathrooms at my old halls: zero. This does nothing to change that. In fact right now, I am a hundred percent happy to be in my small but comfy flat: phenomenal Rich-cleaned bathroom, itty bitty living space.

  “Shall I ring you back in five?” I ask through a grimace.

  “Nah. I had an omelette, so…”

  “Yeah, you can stop there. Listen, about tomorrow–”

  “If it’s about that economics essay,” he cuts in, “then no. I haven’t done it. They need to make this shit more interesting.”

  That would be the essay I completed nearly three weeks ago, then. “Actually, it was about the seminar. Listen. Do you think you’d mind skipping tomorrow to do me a favour?”

  He snorts. “Are you suggesting I actually need a reason to ditch, Cait? Because fuck that for a barrel of ball juice.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes, you’ll skip.” I find myself grinning against my pillow (which is where I’ve been for the past hour, just wallowing in the floating words of Art’s letter). “I kinda need some muscle.”

  “Oh?” His tone ramps up in interest. “Does your muscle get paid in cake?”

  “He gets paid in warm fuzzies for doing something good for his friend.”

  The distinctive sound of toilet roll tearing bleats down the receiver. “But are they made of cake?”

  “They’re made of shut-the-fuck-up-about-cake,” I retort. Christ.

  Drew tuts. “Now that doesn’t sound very warm and fuzzy. But d’you know what is…?”

  “Let me guess. Your arse.”

  “More specifically,” he says with glee, “the steaming heap coming out of it. Here it comes. Oh yeah, oh–fire in the hooooole!”

  Eugh. Boys.

  “Cait!” Vicky bashes on my door, making it shudder. “Cab’s here. Come on.”

  “Unfortunately,” I tell Drew, “I have to go now.”

  “You sure? Because round two’s a comin’…”

  “See you tomorrow, you vile twit.” I hang up, shaking my head at him before clambering about for my shoes, bag and phone.

  Tomorrow will see me tear apart old muscles and bleed something newborn. I’ve done the necessary, will stew in a pale sheen of sweat for it, but now it’s time to visit Mills.


  ***

  Hospitals drink up what’s left of you. You’re never calm, going in, never quite in one piece; something about the atmosphere slurps at your skin. As I approach Mills’ ward, all my limbs go heavy with grim anticipation and regret.

  Nurses don’t smile at you–they’re too busy. Doctors don’t look at you–they’re too tired or wired to see. Only the walls, endless washes of white and pale blue and occasion ratty NHS posters with their blithe Arial fonts, are consistent. They are the only things that are always there.

  Now, I know how awful Art must have felt on Friday. How his gut must have shuddered when he picked up the phone. He didn’t get to rescue Priya, or see her afterwards to tell her off. All he got was a sudden, swift blister of finality that popped when he found her that morning. And zero to cauterise the wound afterward. Not even allowed to go to her funeral–how fucked up is that?

  I’d say I couldn’t imagine what it all was like, but after Friday, I know a little. Not all of it, but enough. And I don’t think he’s any type of beast except the human kind. Dominic seemed to ask me for forgiveness, the last time we were here–I bristled with the lack of it. Not so for Art. I have to forgive him; if I don’t, how else will he forgive himself?

  I just don’t know how, or when.

  “Caitlyn.” Mom peels herself off the plastic bench of the waiting area. She’s wearing the same long green cardigan–now noticeably ratty around the hems–and her eyes have splintered new wrinkles into surrounding skin. “And…Vicky. It’s nice to see you.” She barely has the energy to smile.

  I put my arms around her, squeezing hard in my loss-borne bravery. “We’ll be here for a few hours. You’re going home to get a shower, okay?”

  I expect The Huff, but she barely flinches. “Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay.”

  Vicky holds up a huge M&S carrier bag. “Want a pre-prepared sandwich of questionable quality?”

  “Actually, that sounds lovely.” She presses her thin lips together, nodding her thanks as Vicky fishes out a wrap made with hummus. “Millie will update you. There’s been some progress today.”

  Of course Mills will update. She must’ve hated nothing more than people talking about her condition right over her, all weekend.

  “Progress. That’s good, right?”

  “It’s better.” She sighs. “Not all we can hope for, but small steps.”

  I gesture to the ward door. “I’m going to go through, then. See you around eight.”

  “Eight. Thank you, Caitlyn.” She twists to Vicky, wrap of questionable quality in hand. “And thank you for the sandwich.”

  Vicky waits outside with her Kindle while I go in to see Mills. The ward is busier, what with it being official visiting hours, and when I see her propped up in a bed–in daylight, and without a drip plugged into her bruised arm–my stomach flip-flops a little. I don’t tell her often, but I really do love my sister. If she was lying cold on a slab somewhere right now, I don’t know how I’d put myself back together.

  “Cait,” she deadpans. “About bloody time.” Her dark hair is scraped back into a French plait–something Mom used to do for us when we were small–and she’s wearing one of her band tshirts from home. She looks…normal. Or as normal as you can be in a drab hospital bed.

  “I come bearing gifts,” I declare, holding the bags aloft. “This big one’s from me and Vicky–just some munchies, toiletries, that kind of thing. And this pink one…that’s from Aidan.”

  “Aidan?” She wrinkles her nose. “You’ve seen him?”

  This must be code for he knows? How mortifying. “Yep. This morning, as it happens.”

  “And he brought this for me?” She teases the white ribbon open on the pink bag, then practically shrieks at its contents. “Oh my God.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s so nice of him.” Her blue eyes grow a glassy sheen. She blinks it away, blotting salt water to her lashes. “I’m not sure I deserve stuff like this.”

  “Don’t be a pansy, Mills.” I pull up a plastic chair and plonk myself into it, reaching for her hand at the same time. She just lets me stroke it. “Mom said there’s been some progress? Did you see the psyche consultant?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugs, still trying to stave off the sobs that are piling inside her throat like traffic. “She–she was great. Really…I liked her.”

  “And can you come home?”

  “If I promise to behave myself, they say maybe in a couple of days. Once they’ve referred me for a metric fuck tonne of counselling and stuff.” She toys with the white ribbon. Runs a nail-bitten finger across the top of the pink bag. “But after that, I…I don’t know, Cait.”

  “You don’t have to know. Don’t put yourself under pressure.”

  “Well that’s pretty convenient, since I don’t know shit.” Her shoulders buckle. She hides her face in her hands. “D-did you finish the book?”

  Ugh. My nerves grate on themselves, rubbing like sandpaper. “Yeah. Unfortunately. Worst ending ever.”

  A weak, tearstained smile breaks through her melancholy. “It’s meant to be all gritty and realistic.”

  And it is, for Mills. She was so nearly barricaded into the lighthouse. “Don’t you think it’s weird that Aidan brought you Creme de la Mer? Cream of the Sea. It’s like he knows.”

  Mills frowns at me, then begins to snigger. “The Waves…all over your face.”

  “Aren’t you proud of me for getting a metaphor, though?”

  “Oh yeah. Totally worth living for,” she says with a straight face.

  “Don’t joke like that. It’s not funny,” I mutter.

  Mills sits back against the pillows. Her glassy gaze travels up to the ceiling. Plastic sheets creak. “I know,” she croaks out.

  And then she crumples.

  ***

  The night passes in swathes of darkness. Black absence of light in my bedroom, violet sky giving birth to a sliver of new moon in the window, sheets like ink blotted on snow as I toss and turn. I fall asleep playing Art’s massages on loop in my brain. The sheet hangs down my bare back, and I imagine his fingers becoming flesh on the air to swoop in and rub their circles across my buttocks, alongside my spine. Invisible Art works his thumbs beneath my shoulder blades and lifts, so gently; the heavy scent of my dragonfruit candle lingers everywhere, anointing everything in its smoky wake. Just like him.

  I’ve heard nothing since the letter, but that’s okay. He put the ball in my court just like those crappy sports commentators he likes, and this morning, I begin to play.

  All I want for breakfast is coffee–smooth, foamy coffee that needs to be wiped from my top lip with a thick napkin. So I grab one on my way to the pub to meet Drew. He waits outside the Tap and Spile, an old-style establishment around the corner from the bustling town market. It’s fish day, and you can smell it on the spring wind.

  I dump my coffee cup in the bin, still half-full. Am too nervous and nauseous to consume any more of it. Something coarse sits in the gape of organs between my hips, and if I feed it anything else, it’ll spit at me.

  “You sure about this?” Drew asks as I approach.

  “Sure. In fact it’s overdue.” I nod toward the thick wooden door of the pub. “Did you check?”

  “Oh yeah. He’s in there–waiting in that booth at the back.” Drew shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Cait. Be careful, okay? I’ll be watching from the other end.”

  “I will. And cheers for this.” I go to open the door, but pause. “Did you tell Rich, after all?”

  He snorts. “Not all of it. I mean, we need someone to get the seminar notes, right?”

  “I’m loving your work.”

  Okay: brain, engage. Get in there, do what you need to do, and get out again. Smash the skeletons. Carpe the diem.

  I swivel back to Drew, my hand sweaty on the brass door handle. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Look. You want to chunder? I’ll give you chunder fodder, trust me, but it won’t be one
pansy-ass coffee at midday,” he says, incredulous. “Now get your sorry little pod squad arse in there and slay the orcs, or whatever you said you were doing.”

  “Slay the orcs,” I say flatly. “Right.”

  “In,” he hisses in my ear. And then he shoves past and yanks the door open, guiding me inside with one large, firm hand.

  It only takes a second to spot Dominic. He’s crouched over the table in the back booth, rubbing his short hair with a flat palm and spinning a ratty beer mat in the other. It took all of two minutes for him to reply to my Facebook message yesterday, requesting a meet. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ll be blocking him again as soon as I leave. This is my closure. If he’s sensible, he’ll let it be his, too.

  He startles when he sees me. One hand rubs across stiff, auburn stubble, and the sound grates on the air. So sure was he that I’d turn up that two tall, frosty glasses of coke sit on the table, just the way they used to when we began to go out. The local pub would only serve us soft drinks and we’d spend long, lazy afternoons there, feeling grown up while we teased each other under the sticky tables.

  I meander around half-empty booths toward him. Pensioners are ordering from the cheap weekday menu, and a couple of students huddle around their binders and tablets, halves of beer quietly nursed. I sink into the weathered velvet of the opposite seat. Count my breaths. In and out, in and out…

  “Hey,” I blurt. “Thanks for coming.” Ha.

  “That’s okay.” He pulls a strange, eerie smile. “It’s just nice to finally have you alone.” He nudges my knee with his, and I jerk away.

  “You keep saying that you want to talk,” I grind out. “So talk.”

  “Okay. Right. Well.” That knee keeps searching for mine. Begs like a stray. “It’s just…it’s been a while.”

  “That’s what happens when you split up. And you wanted to split up, Dominic.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Still, the knee slips around beneath the table. Touch is no longer my anathema, but this is different. I craved the light brush of his body for so long that I thought I remembered exactly what it was like…it was never barbed wire. And yet it is.