Living On Air

by Susan Mac Nicol

  I didn’t. I had more pride than that, and I needed to walk away from him with that intact. It was all I had right now.

  “Take care of yourself, Cary. I hope we at least had some good times. And that you find what you’re looking for. You deserve to be happy and I hope you get there.” I leaned down and put my mouth close to his ear, so no one could hear. “Please talk to someone about the cutting. I can’t bear the thought of you hurting yourself. Remember I love you. Loving you is my penance for the time we’ve had together. When you decide you want to be part of this thing we have, call me. I'll always be there for you.”

  Then I opened the door and stepped out into the cold night air. My cheeks were wet, and I brushed it away. Julien hurried after me as I walked to my caravan to get my bag. Behind me, I heard Greta’s soft voice carry across the field, then the door shut, and the sound disappeared.

  Julien stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “I am so sorry, Rhys. Cary is a stubborn fool and this last event has driven him even further inside himself. I understand you leaving, but I wish it wasn’t so. Even though he cannot admit it, he needs you. In his own way, he loves you.”

  I wasn’t sure that was still true. I’d thought so once. “Perhaps. He told me I was causing him pain, causing him to—” I stopped, not wanting to betray Cary’s trust. “—hurt. The last thing I want to do is add to his torment. He needs time, so I’m giving it to him. If he wants to come and find me one day, so be it. I won’t hold my breath though. In the meantime, I need to move on.”

  Julien pulled me in for a hug. “You need time to heal too, my friend. I wish you all the best for the future. Please call me when you get home, so we know you have arrived. And we expect to see you next time we are up your way.”

  I nodded. “Will do.” I hesitated. “Take care of him for me, will you? And keep me updated on what’s happening down here if you would.” Mayhew said Cary wouldn’t be subject to any blowback from any of the events from the time he’d run away to now but still I worried for him.

  “I will. Safe journey home.” I pulled Julien in for one last hug then left him without looking back.

  Back in my caravan, exhausted, grief stricken, there was only one person whose voice I wanted to hear. But it was too late, and she’d be sleeping. Instead I dropped my mother a text.

  I’m coming home, Mam. Be there in a few days. Say hi to Dad. Love you both. See you soon.

  There was solace in a family. Mum, Dad, and Joseph. And a big black pig called Bunter.

  And after I’d gotten over my heartbreak, perhaps I might take Stuart up on the offer of the job in Mexico.

  Chapter 22

  Cary

  I pressed down on the spikes cutting into my skin and gritted my teeth. With each push, I added up my past mistakes. I was already up to four.

  Five. Sleeping with Rhys.

  Six. Caring for Rhys.

  Seven. Being a complete and utter bastard to Rhys.

  Eight. Shutting him out after the Littlejohn killing.

  Nine. Being an arsehole of note to everyone who cared for me.

  Ten. Sending him away.

  The litany went on and on and when I got to twenty, most of which involved Rhys, I stopped, soaked in sweat, tears, and blood.

  The past two weeks I’d lived in a dream world. I got up, washed, performed, cut, went to bed, slept badly, got up, travelled to the next campsite, performed, cut, went to bed, slept badly. Rinse and repeat was the story of my life.

  I missed Rhys so much.

  My thighs looked like ground sausage, and I knew the time was coming when I wouldn’t be able to perform, and I’d have to reveal all to Greta, and Julien.

  This is what depression is, I thought as I lay there on the floor, pants around my ankles, exhausted by the mutilations I’d performed. They’d been right. I needed help, but I couldn’t summon the energy to do it on my own.

  “Then you shouldn’t have sent away the only person who would have helped you through it,” I muttered. “You need him, you know you do. And now it’s too late. He’ll never want you back.”

  True to his word, Rhys had maintained radio silence. I’d gleaned snippets of how he was doing from Greta and Julien, with whom he’d kept in touch, but for me, there was nothing. I wanted to know if he’d mentioned me, but I was too damn proud and stubborn to ask.

  The sharp tang of wood smoke crept into my nostrils, and I sniffed. Either someone was having a bonfire, or something was on fire. Before I could get up to find out the source of the smoke I now saw billowing outside my window, my door was flung open and Greta stood there.

  “Cary, you need to leave your place, the trailer next door is on fire.” Her voice trailed off. “Oh dear God, what have you done to yourself?”

  The horror in her voice and the despair on her face rocked me into action. I unwound the cilice, and it dangled in my blood-stained hand. I stood up and pulled my yoga pants over ripped thighs and calves as the red continued to run. The fact she’d seen my junk full on was not something I’d ever wanted either.

  “You, you…” Words failed her, and she gripped me by the arm. “This is a conversation we will have later. You need to come with me, in case the fire spreads. Despite what I have seen, no one wants you going ka-boom.”

  I had no choice but to be pulled from my home, pain radiating with every step. Once I’d been dragged far enough away from the smoke, as the circus folk tried to put out the flames that leapt from Rhys’s old caravan with a hose, she pushed me to the ground.

  “You. Stay there,” she commanded. “Do not move. You are no use to us like that.” She waved a hand towards my legs. “First, I tackle this fire. Then, I tackle you.” The threat in her voice was a vivid purveyor of what was to come.

  I watched as my friends and family ran around, dousing the fire, reducing the once cosy caravan that held good memories for me to a smoking, splintered carcass. We always camped close to water and Greta’s unrelenting rule to do so had saved the fire from spreading.

  Thank God Rhys hadn’t been in there.

  Greta was speaking to Julien and Lucy, and they looked over in my direction. Then, as Greta barked out orders to the rest of the clean-up crew, ignoring me, Julien and Lucy walked over. My heart plummeted.

  Julien stood above me and raised an eyebrow. “I understand we have a clean-up of our own to do with you.” His face wasn’t its usual, calm self. In fact, he looked downright pissed off. Lucy looked sad, but there was a glimmer in her eyes I didn’t like either.

  I nodded and tried to struggle to my feet, fire burning in my legs. “There’s salve in my camper. In a cupboard under the sink. You’ll find a medicine kit there.”

  Lucy nodded and disappeared into my home. Smoke still drifted through the air, and I coughed as I caught some of it in my throat. Julien helped me steady myself by taking my elbow.

  “Greta’s said to get you to her caravan and tend to you there. Can you walk, or do I need to carry you?”

  I snorted. “I doubt you could. I can walk.”

  I caught a flash of white teeth. “Cary, you’d be surprised what I can do. Come then. Lucy will bring the kit to us and then we can fix up the mess you have made.”

  I didn’t think he was only talking about my leg.

  *****

  I sat in silence while Julien and Lucy tended to me. My attempts to help were delivered with Julien’s genteel disapproval. Lucy murmured soft words of progress, interspersed with an occasional wounded look.

  She’d brought me clean clothes so once bandaged up, I showered and changed in Greta’s rather palatial bathroom—compared to mine anyway—and went out to meet the wrath I knew was coming.

  Julien and Lucy had left. Greta sat in her armchair, hands folded in her lap. I wondered if it was because then she could resist laying me across her knee and giving me the spanking of my life.

  She gestured to the couch. “Sit down.”

  I sat, shifting and raising my legs to lie across the couch.

>   We sat in silence while I waited for the volcano to erupt. I was glad about being discovered in some twisted way. It was the last secret I had kept from her, and being found out was freeing. “¿Que pasa, punieta, Cary? ¡Es muy estupido! ¡Estupido! What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Greta’s harsh tone and the fierce language made me blink, and I leaned back from her madly gesticulating hands, fearful of being hit.

  “You know what I was doing. You saw the result,” I snapped back in false bravado.

  “Cary, I swear before all that is holy, do not fuck with me, cabrón.” Greta’s face darkened. “I knew you had a secret, and I thought with what had occurred with that monster, we could be honest with each other. This…” She waved at my legs. “I did not expect. How long has it been going on?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “Since I was twelve. The cilice is more recent. That started around eight years ago.”

  I saw her doing the mental arithmetic in her head. “You have been hurting yourself for so long? Dios mío.” She crossed herself. “You hid it well from me. From us all.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did Rhys know about this?”

  I hesitated. “Yes. He found out when Marco died. Don’t blame him though. I told him he couldn’t say anything.”

  Greta’s eyes filled with tears. “I have been a bad mother. Perdóname, mijo. Mea culpa, mea culpa.” Her eyes filled with tears. I shifted uncomfortably as she beat on her chest and sobbed loudly. I’d never seen her this upset before.

  “Wait, what?” Shock at her words rent deep. “How come you think you’ve been a bad mother? And how is this your fault?”

  She stood up and screamed at me, tears streaking down her face. “Because I did not know. Because I should have known the man I thought of as a son was harming himself. That makes me a bad mother.” She broke down then, collapsing back into her armchair, fist held to her chest, wailing as if the world had ended.

  My heart shattered into a thousand pieces, and I stood up and hobbled over to her. Hell no. None of this was on her. None of it.

  I sat on the arm of the chair and put my arm around her, pulling her in. “Madre, you have been the best mother a boy could have. There is no one who would have done what you have, bringing me up and caring for me. Teaching me. This is not your fault, it’s mine alone.”

  “But, but, your poor leg, and those scars. It explains so much and I only see it now. Cary, mi amor, what you must have suffered.” Her crying deepened and all I could do was hug her to my soaking wet chest and hope she’d forgive me for causing her so much pain.

  “Greta, please don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart.”

  We sat entwined together until her sobs receded and she sniffled instead. I reached out and picked up a tissue from the box. “Here. Blow your nose and I’ll make you a coffee.”

  Greta favoured Turkish coffee when upset. I hated it. It tasted like bitter mud. While she composed herself, I made her one and for myself, a cup of peppermint tea.

  We sat sipping while she blew her nose, and I tried not to wince at the thought of what was coming out.

  She looked tired and drawn, and pangs of guilt rippled through me at being the cause. The fire had had something to do with it too, I told myself.

  “What does Rhys say about…what you do to yourself?”

  “He’s not okay with it, but he understands I need to do it.” My throat clogged up again. “He said if I ever felt the need to cut I should call him, that perhaps he could be the reason I didn’t.” I hesitated but I had not much soul left to bare, so fuck it. I may as well go all out. “Instead I told him he caused it.” I remembered his stricken face when I’d said those words to him. I’d regretted them the minute I’d said it.

  Greta shook her head. “Have you ever called him—when you feel the need?”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes. Not enough.”

  She sat back, a faraway look in her eyes. “What would you have felt had Rhys been in the caravan when it was on fire? When the faulty wire that started it flared up and sparked into an inferno, knowing he was in there?”

  I stared at her, the dread unfurling in my stomach and nauseating me. “But he wasn’t in there.”

  “That is not what I am asking you.”

  I swallowed, trying to clamp down on the panic rising in my chest at the thought of losing Rhys in that way. “I’d have been fucking scared. I would have regretted everything I never said, every touch I could have made but didn’t. I would have lived with more guilt that I hadn’t told him the truth.”

  “Which is what, Cary?” Greta’s steely voice echoed in the room.

  I couldn’t use the L word, it wasn’t in me yet. I wasn’t sure I ever could. “That I care for him. As a man. As a lover. As a friend.”

  Greta patted the hand on the arm still wrapped around her shoulder. “So, you have some decisions to make, si? But first, I will tell you of my decisions. My non-negotiable and no-compromise decisions.” She pushed at me and I stood, then went back to the couch to sit down. Greta stood and pointed her hand at me. I waited to hear her demands.

  “First, you will no longer perform in this circus.”

  My jaw dropped. “What do you mean? You’re telling me to leave?”

  This is the only family I’ve ever known. Please don’t tell me to go.

  She frowned. “What? No, stupid boy. I would never turn you away from your family.” She swore fluently in Spanish. “Ay puñeta, coño. I mean until your leg heals, and I am happy you have the cutting under control, you will not perform in my arena. I cannot risk you, or the circus to any form of liability. This family is bigger than one man.”

  She swooped over and brandished another finger in my direction. “Secondly, you will seek counselling, like you did before with Cameron. I pushed you into it then after those suicide attempts you made and I am doing the same now.”

  Any argument I would have made was negated because I knew she was right, so I didn’t bother. My first suicide attempt had been when I was twelve. Not a serious attempt, but still traumatic. Then there had been one when I was seventeen, when a boy I’d been seeing—well, fucking—had broken up with me. And the last one, the one that had brought me my Cameron, was at twenty-two when I couldn’t deal with things anymore. That one had been far more serious, and I’d been lucky to make it through.

  And each time, Greta had been there to bring me back to Trazellas. To my circus family.

  Words failed me and all I could do was nod my head.

  “And, once we have stability, you will call Rhys and tell him how you feel. You will beg his forgiveness for being such a stupid man and he will come back here, and you will talk.”

  I closed my eyes as pain tightened my throat. “You’re assuming he still wants to be with me. He may have moved on. I couldn’t blame him.”

  Greta glared at me. “He will want you, do not doubt that. And you will stop this snivelling ‘I’m feeling sorry for myself’ brat routine and accept yourself and the truth of everything.” She waved her hands. “You are not to blame for anything that’s happened to you,” she eyed out my legs, “except that silly cutting. You are a strong, brave, noble man who didn’t deserve what life sent his way, and once you accept that, we can all go back to a world where Cary is not such an ass.”

  I snickered at that, and it felt good. The lightness in spirit I felt talking to my mother about things was something I hadn’t felt in a long while. Well, since I’d pushed Rhys away.

  “Do you accept all my conditions, querido?” Greta sat beside me and took my hand. “I love you like a son, you know this. And I need to be a good mother now and show tough love.” Her smile was watery, and her eyes shone with love.

  She was my home, and I adored her.

  I leaned forward and placed a kiss on her damp, soft cheek. “Si, Madre. Quiero que sepas que te amo también.”

  Her face lit up in delight at me telling her I loved her too. “Hah, someone has been brushing up on his Spanish. Your pronunciation is acceptable.”r />
  I chuckled. “I try. It’s all down to Spanish audiobooks when I can’t sleep.”

  She hugged me again and released. “Now you will go back to your place, get some sleep and in the morning, we will find you someone to talk to. I know it will be a challenge as we move around a lot, but I am sure we will manage somehow. I suggest we find one in the next place we go to, which will be Nottingham. We are there close on four weeks so that will be a good grounding for you.”

  I moved toward the door. “Thank you. For everything. I’m sorry the caravan burnt down. And that I couldn’t help.”

  “Bah, it was an old one, the insurance will pay out.” Her eyes gleamed. “Of course, it means Rhys will have no place to sleep when he comes down, so…” She let the words linger and I laughed.

  “I see where you’re going with that.” My words were playful but deep inside, I wondered whether it would ever be that simple.

  Bridges were burned, and hearts broken, and I had no right to any expectation that Rhys still wanted to be part of my life.

  I’d work on healing myself and then, when the time was right, I’d call him and find out.

  Chapter 23

  Cary

  A week later we were in Nottingham, camped in a delightful field with a stream running through it, and big trees. It was sadly reminiscent of where Marco had lost his life. Two weeks after our arrival there, I held a silent vigil one quiet afternoon, with a beer and a roast beef sandwich, camped out on a blanket under the trees.

  I raised my beer bottle to the sky. “I can’t tell you everything is a hundred percent, old friend. But things are better. I’m seeing a therapist called Lydia, and she’s cool. She lets me talk at my own pace and when we move around, I’ve got a direct line to her, and a couple of suggestions for people in other places. So, the counselling is going okay.” I took a gulp of beer.

  “I hate being on the tablets she’s given me for the depression, but I’m not struggling as much as I thought.” I took a bite of my sandwich. “As for the cutting…” I stopped and looked down at my jeans-clad legs. “Again, not perfect, but I don’t use the cilice anymore. I’ve gone back to a blade.” I laughed. “Greta took the cilice away and we had a bonfire one night. She threw it in and that was it.”