Carrier (11 page)

Patrick's words hung heavily in the thick, humid air of the cave. We were the real thing, right here right now, flesh and blood, boy and girl, standing before each other, in a cave with the rain crashing about outside.

My heart started to race, and when Patrick slowly lowered his eyes to meet mine, his pupils black and deep, it looked as though his heart might have been racing just as fast.

Thunder cracked all around us and I jumped and stumbled forward, only to be caught by Patrick's outstretched arms. He bent his head, his breathing hard. ‘Are you okay, Lena?'

I nodded, unable to speak because of the way his warm hands on my shoulders were making me feel — all tingly inside — and because of the way he was looking at me, like I was something beautiful, like I was that naked woman he had so artfully drawn on the cave wall.

His eyes moved to my lips and then back up to my eyes, making my stomach flutter.

‘Let's start a fire,' I whispered when I could finally manage words.

Patrick cleared his throat and after a few seconds, gently released me. ‘Good idea.'

I set about busying myself with unpacking my things while Patrick crossed the cave to the darkened corner where I'd imagined the snakes and skeletal remains earlier. He returned with an armful of kindling and several medium-sized branches.

‘I always keep a good stock of firewood just in case,' he said, before kneeling beside the small black mound of black coals from an old fire.

Seeing as he was sorting out the fire, I figured I should do my bit and get the food prepared for our first meal together. Plus I needed to keep busy so that my mind didn't dwell on the fact that I'd be spending my first night away from home, away from Mum — in a small cave, with a boy I hardly knew, a boy who was making me feel all fluttery and warm inside.

While I unwrapped the smoked rabbit, I couldn't help but watch Patrick. Boys were as much a mythical creature to me as unicorns and dragons. He was fantasy come to life. Every movement he made had me riveted. The way his forearm muscles flexed and the way his knuckles bulged when he snapped the branches for kindling.

The way he chewed on his bottom lip while he carefully constructed the wood into a pile. The way his eyes kept finding mine before quickly skipping away.

A single spark from the flint stones Patrick clutched in each hand, and the fire exploded into life. I had to slide my jacket, with our precious food on it, away from the flames in case a spark flew. Patrick worked on the fire, first stacking the kindling, then the slightly heavier branches, watching it with a careful gaze until it all burned down and made enough prime coals to lay some of the thicker chunks on top.

‘This will help dry us off,' Patrick said, glancing at me over the flames.

I smiled and dipped my head to take a peek out at the opening of the cave, and saw that it was completely black outside. The rain had eased off to a drizzle. In a way, I had hoped it would stay heavy and stormy, to keep the Carriers away. It was the only logical reason why I hadn't crossed a Carrier on my journey here.

The rabbit I shared equally — a leg and a strip of back-meat each. Patrick moved to sit beside me and I slid the food his way before seizing a leg and resting my back against the wall.

Patrick bit into the tiny leg and groaned. ‘This is good,' he said, between bites.

I couldn't answer, my mouth was too full, but I continued to watch him eat. There was something pleasurable and rewarding about seeing Patrick put food, which I'd prepared, into his mouth and enjoy it.

After tossing the bare bones into the fire and wetting a terry cloth with water from my bottle to wipe my hands with, I watched Patrick, who crawled through the entrance of the cave and dangled his hands out in the rain for a few seconds before returning to his place by the fire. He rubbed his hands together and gave them a few shakes. Raindrops clung to his hair to drip down his face. He wiped them away with the sleeve of his shirt and sighed.

‘Thanks for dinner.' He rubbed a hand across his flat belly, his cheeks flushing pink. ‘I could eat about ten of those little legs.'

‘Me too,' I said. ‘Thanks for the fire…and the place to sleep.' The cloth I'd wiped my hands with smelt like eucalyptus and made me think of home. I inhaled deeply and hoped that Mum wasn't too distressed with me gone.

Patrick frowned and smiled at the same time. ‘I'm hardly going to make you sleep outside,' he said, before reaching behind him for his backpack and yanking out a fresh pair of jeans and shirt.

I'd almost forgotten that I was soaking wet and followed suit, taking out a change of clothes for myself, with no idea as to how I was actually going to find the guts to strip in front of Patrick.

‘We can get changed at the same time, with our backs to each other,' Patrick suggested, when I hesitated.

‘Okay.' I stood up and turned around, checking over my shoulder to make sure that Patrick was doing the same thing. He was. In fact he was already out of his shirt and his hands were working on the front of his pants. As soon as I heard the zipper coming down, I turned back around, blushing from my neck up.

I tugged my shirt up and over my head before slapping it down on the cave floor. My pants came next and as soon as they were off I reached down and snatched my change of clothes from the ground.

‘Are you dressed yet?' I called over my shoulder, paranoid he was going to be dressed already and turn around.

When I got no answer, I snuck a peek and found a fully dressed Patrick facing me, front on, his eyes wide.

‘Turn around!' I screamed at him, and he did, after a few slow seconds had passed.

‘Sorry...I thought when you asked...I thought you were already dressed,' he said, his voice low and raspy and full of apology.

Within about ten seconds I was fully clothed and trembling all over.

‘Sorry. I didn't mean to, Lena.'

‘It's okay,' I said. ‘Let's just forget about it.'

I wasn't angry at him. I was more embarrassed by my androgynous body that could no way measure up to the voluptuous woman he'd etched into the cave walls. The way he'd stared at my nakedness with that look of surprise in his eyes, I was certain he was disappointed at his first real-life naked girl.

By this time I had finished fussing around with my wet clothes, stretching them out across my backpack to dry, Patrick had moved to the far side of the cave, laying with his back to me. He'd taken his meagre belongings with him but had left a blanket beside the fire, for me, I supposed.

I cleared my throat.

‘You left your blanket, here. You'll be cold over there, away from the fire.' To be honest, I didn't like the idea of sleeping so close to the cave entrance on my own.

‘I want you to have it,' he called over his shoulder.

‘Don't be silly.' My palms itched against the scratchy wool as I held it to my chest and walked around the fire to the other side of the cave. Patrick kept his head down while I cast a shadow over him. ‘Here. It's yours.'

‘Just take the blanket, please, Lena,' he groaned, sounding tired. ‘I always sleep over here. I'm not cold.' When I didn't leave, he added. ‘Can you just go away and get some sleep?'

I stood there, wondering what I could have done to make him want to get as far away from me as possible, when from out the corner of my eye I spotted the naked lady drawing. And then I knew.

‘Did I look that bad?' I said, my voice quavering with the rejection that I was ashamed for even caring about. ‘Is that what this is all about? How ugly I look?'

Patrick kept his eyes on the back wall of the cave.

‘If you really have to know, it's the opposite of that,' he said, his voice taking on a tender tone. ‘I think you are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.'

‘Oh.' I stood there, not knowing what else to say so I turned around. With the blanket clutched tightly to my chest, I somehow navigated my way back to my spot without really seeing or breathing. Patrick thought I was beautiful. He thought I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

The only girl he has ever seen,
my brain whispered. But I couldn't deny the effect Patrick's words had on me — a tingly sensation that spread from my chest right through to my fingers and toes, enough to keep me warm for a thousand stormy nights.

After spreading the coarse blanket on my lap, I reclined against my pack which I used as a pillow to keep the cool cave wall from giving me a chill, and watched Patrick over the ebbing flames. He had squished his backpack into the groove where the cave wall met the ground. His long, lean body trembled beneath his thin, worn clothing.

‘You sure you don't want the blanket?'

‘I'm sure,' he said, a note of finality in his tone. ‘Goodnight, Lena.'

‘Goodnight, Patrick. Thank you…for everything.'

The flames died gradually and spectacularly, sending tall, graceful shadows dancing along the cave walls, shrinking until there was nothing left but the glowing coals.

My lids began to droop while I watched the coals dim, but just before I drifted off to sleep, thunder cracked and lightening flashed, illuminating the entire cave.

I gasped as an icy chill sliced through me.

Two massive, tall men, each with long, white-blond hair, stood at the cave entrance —
inside
— watching me with the palest blue eyes I'd ever seen.

My brain screamed, but my throat had closed, preventing me from uttering a sound.

I scrambled across the cave floor and over the still-warm coals, kicking up ash in the process, until I reached a softly snoring Patrick.

I shook his sleeping form.

‘Wake up, Patrick, wake up!'

A soft groan escaped his lips.

I grasped hold of his shoulders and shook him again. The cave was now dark and I had no idea where those
things
were.

More lightening flashed…and I braced myself for what I would see next.

But the pale figures with white-blond hair were gone. They must have moved pretty fast, considering their height and the fact that the cave entrance was only about a metre high.

‘Lena…' Patrick moaned in the dark and reached for me, his hands sliding up my arms until they found my face. He stroked my cheek and swallowed thickly. ‘What are you doing over here…with me?'

‘There were two people…things at the cave entrance,' I whispered, shuffling as close to him as possible, my eyes trained on where the strangers had stood only seconds ago. At my words, Patrick withdrew his hands and seemed to jolt awake.

‘Sometimes the fire makes shadows when it's dying,' he said, sitting up, his arm brushing against my side. ‘I've slept here many times and it happens,' he added.

‘No. They were real.' My thudding heart was like thunder in my ears. ‘They were really tall and pale, and blond; really, really blond.'

‘Did they have wet hair?'

I listened to the rain hammering against the cave wall and thought about the two men. Their hair had been dry, their heads haloed by lightening.

‘No.'

‘Then it couldn't have been real. Maybe you dreamed the Swedish invaded us?' I could almost hear Patrick's smile in his voice.

‘No, they were real. But that's weird. How could they have been dry?'

Patrick listened patiently while I told him about the two silhouettes at my window the night before and the blue flash in the sky only days ago.

‘Maybe as you were falling asleep tonight, you were thinking about the shadows at your window, which caused you to dream about two blond men?' His warm breath tickled my hair. ‘And maybe, deep down, you have a thing for blonds. I'm a little offended, actually.'

Without thinking, I lightly punched his arm and he groaned as though it hurt.

This unexpected messing about seemed to evoke a deeper sense of intimacy between us, as though we'd known each other forever, reminding me of the short time I'd spent with Sapphire by the waterhole.
Two friends in one day
. I couldn't stop the big smile on my lips or the rush of heat to my cheeks. Thank God it was so dark.

Thunder growled as though rolling right beneath us.

‘Come on, we need to get some sleep,' Patrick said, adopting a more serious tone.

I glanced at the cave entrance and watched it illuminate then darken again.

‘No way. What if they come back? What if they were the ones with the car?'

Patrick shifted to his side and rummaged around in his pockets, presumably for his knife. ‘I'll keep watch first. You sleep.'

‘Wake me halfway and then I'll take over,' I whispered.

‘Go get some sleep, Lena.'

‘Can I sleep here, with you?' There was no way I was going back over there.

Patrick remained silent for a while before he whispered, ‘Sure.' He got up and somehow retrieved my blanket in the dark, and spread it across me when I lay down. Then he gently raised my head and put his hessian pack beneath me. It was still warm from when he'd slept on it.

I pressed my nose into the material and smelt grass and sand and something I couldn't quite place — maybe it was the smell of ‘boy'.

‘Thanks,' I said, smiling. ‘I promise to tuck you in later.'

‘Goodnight, Lena,' he said, his voice soft and wistful. I wished I could have seen his face.

As I drifted off to sleep I felt Patrick play with a strand of my short hair, twisting it gently between his fingers, sending warm tingles across my scalp and down my neck. I didn't say anything, or move, because I didn't want him to stop. It was something Mum used to do, years ago, before Alice died and took with her every bit of softness Mum had left.

So I just closed my eyes and pretended that she was here in this cave, loving me like I she used to.

*

I awoke to the fragrant smell of woody smoke, the crackling of a newly lit fire, and a pair of eyes watching me over the top of those flames.