Scrap Metal (12 page)

And yet, in the deep part of the night, I thought he’d changed his mind. I wasn’t sure what had woken me. I lay flat on my back, watching the shift of ash-twig shadows on the ceiling, cast there by a slender new moon. Clover and her brood were absent on a hunting trip, so for once I had the bed to myself. I was warm and clean, having spent about an hour up to my armpits in Aga-heated bathwater, carefully washing every chilly, neglected inch of myself. There’d been plenty for Cameron after me, and probably the tank would have stretched to a third, though Harry hadn’t shown himself again after supper and had more than likely washed in the burn to remind us what a pair of poofs we were.

I smiled in the darkness, tucking my hands behind my head and stretching. If Harry and I weren’t careful, life might become something other than a hellish crawl from one day to the next, and what would we do then?

A board creaked in the corridor outside my room. I sat up. I’d left my door off the catch so the cat could push it open if she wished. “Clover,
cagaran
?”

“No. Just me. I’m sorry.”

“Cam.” The door inched open a little way. “It’s all right. Come in. What’s the matter?”

“I…” Gingerly Cam let himself into the room. He closed the door behind him and stood in the moonlight, his back pressed to the wall. “Okay. This is really fucking stupid. I heard a noise.”

Instantly my mind was full of Glasgow villains come to drag him off. Well, they’d have to go through me. I’d locked Al’s gun away, but I knew where to find it. I swung my legs out of the bed. “What kind of noise? Where from?”

He held out a hand. It wasn’t quite steady, I noted, and he was terribly pale. “Nothing bad. At least…nothing human, far as I could make out. Nic, is this place haunted?”

The first time he’d shortened my name. An odd time for it, but it was sweet to me, sweet as my short-lived first thoughts on hearing his voice. “Well, if anywhere ought to be, I suppose this is it,” I said, tucking my feet back in. I remembered my folded-up jacket on the bench, the sound of Caitlin’s voice in the kitchen. “But not as far as I know. Why? What did you hear?”

“Hard to describe. Maybe I dreamed it. It was like some lost soul howling, like…” His eyes went wide. “Christ, like that.”

It took me a second to work out what was bothering him. I was so used to the cry rising softly from beyond the windows—pitching up into a scream then dying back into mournful, musical silence—that I barely heard it anymore. Like breeding owls and the night-time mutter of ewes over their lambs, it had always been part of my childhood song of spring. I broke into laughter. “Cam, you pussy. That’s a great northern diver out on the Sound.”

“A what?”

“A bird. The Americans call them loons.”

“You’re kidding me. No way is that a fucking bird.”

“Honest.”

“What’s…?” The call came again, echoing up from the sea. To me it was exquisite, opening the space between water and heaven, bearing the sense of that huge vacancy down to me in my safe human world. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. That’s its love song. Pretty sexy stuff as far as Mrs. Loon’s concerned… Honestly, Cam, look at the state of you. Come here.”

He let go his backed-up stance against the wall and came to me uncertainly. He had on a pair of my pyjama bottoms but was naked from the waist up, gooseflesh crawling. When I reached to take his hand, he was ice cold, and I realised the temperature had plummeted, stealing hard-won heat from the house through its ancient rafters.

“Want to come in for a minute? Get warmed up?”

He hesitated then nodded, and I gave his hand a little tug.

“Come on, then. It’s okay.”

He closed his eyes as if about to take a plunge. Well, I was unknown waters. Shifting over for him, I tried to show him they were safe. Shallow, if he wanted. Just a warm body in a bed. I put out an arm, and he stretched out awkwardly beside me. I couldn’t fathom the sound he made as he laid his head on my shoulder. There was relief in it—frustration and fear too. I was at once glad and sorry I was wearing a T-shirt, that I couldn’t feel the brush of his lips on my bare skin.

“What’s up?” I whispered, gently ruffling his hair.

“I feel stupid now.”

“Don’t.
I’ll
never remind you you were scared out of bed by a waterfowl.”

He chuckled painfully. “Great.”

“More to it than a bird, though, isn’t there? Why are you so frightened?”

“I have bad dreams.”

As if on cue, the diver raised its lonely cry again. Cameron shivered and hid his face.

“It’s okay,” I told him, pulling him close. “I tell you what we’ll do. Tomorrow we’ll go for a walk and find one of the damn things. Once you’ve heard it by daylight it won’t bother you anymore.”

“We don’t have time for walks, do we?”

“We’ll make time. Okay?”

He nodded. His hair had survived its chemical assault and moved softly against my cheek. It smelled of the Ivory soap my ma had also bought in bulk and stored in heaped-up boxes in the cupboard. I probably smelled of the same, but on him I could detect it, catalysed by his body chemistry into something exotic and new. Shyly he slipped an arm around my waist.

I turned a little to face him, to welcome him. Mercifully the sheets and quilt had bunched up between us at hip level. I hated myself for getting an erection when he’d only come to me for comfort, but the more I thought about it the worse it became, so I tried for deep breaths and conversation. “What do you dream about?”

“I never remember.”

That was a lie. I didn’t know why I was so certain, except that I was fairly sure that since his arrival, he’d told me as much of the truth as he could, and this sounded different. I stroked his ribs. They were still too prominent, but he was getting there. I didn’t want him to be starved, or cold, or afraid.

Forgetting myself, I kissed the top of his head. “I wish I could help you.”

“You do help me. So much more than I could ever have expected, you and your grandfather both. I could never…”

He faded off. I felt him twitch in my embrace, tensions building. I wondered if he was having the same problem I was, and briefly prayed it was so—I could lift the tangled bedclothes away then, entwine our limbs, end our dance in flaring heat and fireworks. “What is it?”

“Harry. What time does he get up?”

“Not for a couple of hours yet. And he doesn’t do a bed check, so…”

“You wouldn’t want him finding out, though.”

“There’s nothing to find.”
Not so far, anyway.
“Don’t stress about him. Why does he worry you so much?”

“He doesn’t. Just… Are you even out to him?”

“No. I never found anyone it was worth having the row with him about.”
Oh, not so far anyway. Not until now.
I wanted to say it. No matter how he felt about me, no matter how painfully I might strand myself. Somebody had to make the first move. “Listen. If I’d met you in the crowd at T in the Park, I wouldn’t have walked past you either. I…”

“I should go.”

I drew a breath to protest. Already he was easing back from me, though, detaching himself. “Cam, don’t let the old man bother you. I will talk to him, if you—”

“No. It’s nothing to do with him.” He rolled away from me and got up. For a second I thought he was going to walk straight off, but then he turned and looked down at me unhappily, arms folded tight over his chest. “You probably think I’m a cocktease. I can’t explain.”

“A… God, no. No such thing. Don’t run off.”

“I can’t stay. I can’t explain.”

I lay propped on one elbow, looking at the door he’d silently drawn shut behind him. I thought about going after him. I was afraid he’d throw his things into his rucksack and disappear as swiftly as he had arrived, and I wasn’t sure what lengths I’d now go to prevent that. He wasn’t a cocktease, no. But he was bloody beautiful, and I was starting to fall for him.

There were no creaks on the stairs, no rattle of the outside lock. He was still here. So was I—alone in my room, wide awake now, with a hard-on so vigorous there was only one way out. Damn, I hadn’t meant to. Even here by myself it felt like a betrayal, a broken promise, because I’d really meant to offer him nothing but warmth and my bed, and now my mind was quickly recreating him, sketching him back into place, short, vivid strokes. I pulled back the bedclothes that had sealed us off from one another and plunged down into the place where he had been, grabbing my cock, already starting to come. I groaned out his name to the space between the pillows. Muscles in my backside and thighs bunched powerfully, and I thrust and thrust and climaxed much harder than ever I had on my own, sobbing with the force of it.

I lay facedown, lungs heaving, aftermath twitches running through me. My solitary endeavours often left me depressed, but not this time. This time a weird joy was pulsing in my veins—that I could still fly that high, feel so much. And that had been only for the fantasy of Cam, the idea of him. The reality would be… I couldn’t imagine. Maybe I wouldn’t always have to—I was beginning to think we might get there, that his problems weren’t with me. No, this time I was just going to fall asleep, my hand still wedged beneath me. I couldn’t even move out of my wet patch.

My last coherent thought was that at least these days only I ever had to wash the sheets. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow and dropped into smiling oblivion.

Chapter Seven

Harry looked at me in astonishment when, the next day, I told him I wanted a few hours off. Not for a shopping run to Brodick or any of my permitted off-site activities, but to go for a walk with Cameron.

“A walk?” he echoed, as if I’d asked him in Dutch. I understood his confusion. Men who worked the land seldom felt the need to stride about it in their leisure hours, just as it sometimes took an outsider to remind us that our moorlands and sunsets were beautiful.

I could tell he was bewildered by my choice of companion too. After my conversation with Cam the night before, I was reluctant to hide. I considered coming clean.
Actually, Granda, I’d like to go for a walk with a lad I really fancy. The thing is, I’m gay, and so is he, and I think if we had some time together and he could chill out a bit, the pair of us might stand a chance. It would be really great if we could have your blessing because, for some unknowable reason, he seems to think the world of you.

I said, shoving my hands into my pockets and looking at the ground, “It’s a nice day, that’s all. Everything’s done around here. We’ll, er, go down past the forestry plantation and check the fences while we’re there.”

Even that had been tough enough. I went to find Cam, who was struggling with a baling machine in the yard. He looked up as I approached. There were shadows under his eyes, as delicate as the sea-violet colours in them. “You all right, Nichol?”

“Yeah, fine. Come on. We’re going for a walk.”

“Harry wanted me to try and fix this.”

“Fix it later. Come on, while it’s still sunny.” I set off down the track. At first I thought he wouldn’t follow, then I heard him running to catch up.

He fell into step beside me. “I think I like it when you take charge.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to sweep you off. But I said we were going to have a walk, and we’re having one.”

“Won’t Harry mind? Not about you, I mean. But I’m the hired help.”

“Even farmhands get holidays. And you look tired. Did you sleep last night, after…?”

“After I got the creeps and came jumping into your bed?”

“Yeah. You know, there really was no need for you to jump back out.”

“I know. No, I didn’t get much sleep after that. My bed was cold, and those bloody birds of yours kept it up until dawn.”

“Next time stay.”

We followed the track uphill to the place where it met the road. I reminded him, townie that he was, to walk on the right. There was scarcely any traffic, but the long straight stretch tempted men in white vans to drive at stupid speeds, and it was best to see them coming. Deep culverts lined the road, their banks now bright with primroses. Beyond a touch to his arm from time to time to keep him from slipping, I kept careful distance.

We walked in a silence broken only by lark song and the curious electrical chirring of lapwings. After half a mile or so the seaward view to our left became obscured by pine trees, a straggle of saplings in protective tubes at first then great dark ranks of them, blocking out the sun. Ahead of us was the sign for the Board of Forestry’s Claigeann plantation. We crossed the road and entered the shadows, the sound of the wind and the lapwings fading away. Cameron fell back a little. When I turned, he was looking up into the sunless canopy.

“What is it?”

“Why can’t I hear the birds anymore?”

“The pines shade out everything underneath them. Other trees and undergrowth don’t stand a chance. There’s a few types of bird that can live on the needles and cones, but not many.”

“It’s a bit eerie, isn’t it? Oppressive.”

I smiled. “No pleasing you, is there? Last night you didn’t like the birds. Don’t worry, we’re not going to walk through here.” I guided him past the information kiosks and maps for the trails the Board had put in to try and make the place tourist friendly. A narrow rocky path led sharply up out of the car park. “Claigeann means a rock like a skull. That’s all this was when Al and I were kids, just bare rock. We used to come climbing. Then the Board planted it up, but you can still get through and out this way. Come on.”

We were breathless by the time we broached the ridge. I let Cam walk ahead of me so he would get the first, best surprise of the view, and I tried not to think of all the places up ahead and all the ways I could try to persuade him there would be no harm in loving me. I’d tell him he was safe, that no one could hurt him now. That, if he wanted, there need not be strings, or chains, or whatever else he feared—though I questioned my own honesty on that last point. I couldn’t imagine letting him go as things were now. How would I feel once I’d found out how his come tasted, once I’d opened up my flesh to let him in?