Fonding and Permission Ch. 03

Author's note: B#

Chapter three: The Bear's Cave

The door was locked. Felix knew none of his family were in, but that was beside the point. Turning the key had raised an extra screen to shut out the world. It was not that he hated it. He never had, in spite of the curveballs it could throw. It was more that all its sights and sounds would have distracted him from those playing behind his eyelids. He wanted to revisit them while they were fresh. He didn't fear for a sequel, he simply saw no better way to spend his hours between heaven and, he hoped, heaven.

Was that where he was now? Or were these just the Himalayas, which they called five miles high even though they mostly weren't? People forgot the valleys, just as you never remembered the anxious seconds between two moments of delight.

She had given him more than two this morning ... But even that felt like an insult to her, as though his delight were her purpose or close to all she had done for him. He was trying to find words for her gift. They came to him slowly as he sat on his mattress, his back leaning against the bedstead, his duvet in his arms.

I hide my pride, he thought. I've been ashamed of pride and scared of modesty, seen mediocrity's threat in it. I've tried to be great, wanting to deserve my own love. Parents love you unconditionally, but I've wanted open-eyed admiration. And I've set my own standards, because I don't trust others, and tightened them as the world around me has tightened. And I've had to forgive myself time and again for falling short. I've lived in fear of the day when I'm too weak to satisfy myself. No-one has ever relaxed this. Until now. That's the knot your treasuring hands are untying, Theresa.

"I hide my pride and shame", he said out loud. "But you've laid me bare and kissed them."

When had anyone last treasured him? He knew his mother had held him, but he couldn't remember it. ... No, there was nothing in his memory to go with Theresa. What did any Himalayan valleys matter there? He was loath to see a flaw in their morning ... Watch this, Felix, said a voice. See your glasses turn rosy? This is where the long faultline starts. This is the subtle root of the chasm that will try to part you and her one day ... unless you weld it shut now. A watched crack never widens.

Had he given close to as much back to her? Best to keep an eye on that ... Was she thinking this gravely about him? He felt wonder at the idea that he might stand centre stage in young Theresa's mind, that the thought of him had the honour to share her hours of privacy. Was she, too, lying somewhere, shielding his memory from the daytime noise? He couldn't quite convince himself of it. That he should matter this much to anyone was absurd. He hardly mattered that much to himself ...

And the gratitude of her hug came back to him once more. And once more it gave the answer.

What was she doing now? Was she wasting herself on some chore? Well, they needed doing ... He pictured her laughing, then imagined writing her diary with a thoughtful smile. The mood changed and he saw her leaning against a bus stop sign, frowning at the clouds as the traffic rushed by. Troubled grace, he thought ... Why do I think of you as troubled, Theresa?

"I wonder what's bothering you."

He raised his eyebrows at the question he hard just heard himself ask. Did it have a big answer? Or was she, like most people, just dealing with plenty of little things? But no answer offered itself to him and he felt his sense of disquiet dissipate ...

How many paces to take him to her? He realised he didn't even know where she lived. Did he know her well at all? He had thought so all these years, but everything looked different close to, and this morning, for just a moment, they had come very close ...

Was she by herself now? She must have friends and family, other people who shared bits of her life. Perhaps his own family would be among those soon ...

"Slow," he murmured." Don't get ahead of yourself."

He had always been alone, learned to cope with it and thought that wisdom. Nor had he changed his mind there. He didn't want to forget all he had learnt --who knew when loneliness would strike next? But he had always reluctantly suspected that more wisdom waited beyond it. He had doubted he was mature until he knew what the loving majority knew. But he had always stopped short of trying to force into their ranks. Perhaps that was mature, too.

Were his twenty years in the desert ending? Was he at last no longer the ignorant, left-behind butt of everyone's jokes? He had felt like a forgotten bystander at everyone else's Christmas. But now, with them all looking the other way, Father had stepped over to him with a conspiratorial smile to whisper: and for you, Felix, because you've waited longest, here is someone very special ... But don't shout about her.

No, he told himself quickly. Don't be the impatient guy clutching at her while she holds you at bay. Don't be the cliché and embarrass yourself. If these really are the last steps, you needn't hurry. Just open up to her and let her come in her own time. Don't starve her, but give her a chance to want you ...

Still, he had to believe there was more than a chance that she would say yes, perhaps even ask him herself. How sweet that would be ... There was an army of consequences, he knew. But quiet confidence hat got him through a great deal before and he had rarely felt more of it than now.

"We should be OK," he said quietly. "If it comes to it."

And then there was the small matter of their bodies. There must be a reason everyone got so excited about that curious game ... He dimly recalled what it had been like to discover his own: what it did when and how to play it. Could he be that young again now? It seemed that he might have a whole new body to discover, so different from this one but just as lush and fresh, its matching equal: an armful of female mystery with her inside, smiling out at him through warm eyes ... if she trusted him that far ... No, she hadn't been fully trusting this morning. Perhaps not yet. But she had been so real. She had given him glimpses to outshine the daylight.

Would they taste each other? He grinned wryly, shaking his head at the size of the thought. He knew too little, but he was sure things didn't usually go that fast. Nor, on second thoughts, was he sure he wanted them to.

Precaution, though, was another matter. And that was why he had bought a handful of stretchy little items on his way home and quickly shoved them down his safest pocket. He reached inside to make sure they were still there. Stupid, really. They were trapped safely down there. But he knew he would make quite sure of them again before he left.

***

Night was falling and Felix was on his bike, the autumn wind's teeth at his nose and ears. He turned the corner to the long road his old school was at the other end of and felt his pulse rise another notch. Mere minutes from now ... He suddenly realised how fast he had been bicycling. Damn, he'd smell of sweat now. That was the effort of a cold shower wasted.

He hardly noticed the cold now, though darkness had descended to the horizon well before he had set out. It was only when he entered the drive to the schoolyard that he saw the high gates emerge from the night in front of him. He dismounted, hid his bike in the shrubs, and tried them. Locked. Well, what else to expect? ... Was there another way in? Not without a climb, he thought grimly. He checked the time. It was almost eight. She had probably arrived by now. But the Bear's Cave was on the other side of the building ...

"Theresa?"

Silence. He called again and listened, but heard only the small-town night.

He took a step back, then ran forward and jumped, caught hold of the gates near the hinges so as not to damage them, heaved himself over as quietly as possible, dropped down on the other side and looked around. He was keenly aware that he was out of bounds now. Truly back, then, he thought, grinning. School had been full of lines to toe and adventures beyond them. Spending the long break indoors had been strictly forbidden. But he had sometimes crept back in to wander the corridors, making them his home while there was no-one around to tease or bully him, listening to his young dreams while the quiet lasted ... until he heard the patrolling teacher's approach.

If ever the dark of the world came home to him and he needed to run or hide to save his life, the breaks had taught him far more than the lessons ... Childhood reprimands echoed up through the years as he began to circle the building.

Naughty Felix ...

Well, he thought. If she's made it here, so is she. And fit.

He made his way briskly towards the promised place. A day school at night was an odd place. It served no purpose but to persist until the morning while its children slept in their hundreds of beds around town. An alien landing in the yard would never have guessed at the life and chaos the still walls had seen hours before. Felix smiled at the contrast. It felt stronger for being a Friday night. No-one would come here for two and a half days now. This was a haven of peace where they could truly be by themselves for as long as it took, playing like children. Just not the same game.

He was walking past one well-known spot after another towards a completely unknown sort of meeting. There was his favourite lunchtime bench of old; there were the basketball hoops and ping-pong tables; there were the outhouse toilets you never used if you loved life ... He shook his head as he thought back to the thousands of days he had spent here in solitude, never imagining that he might one day return to end it at long, long last.

Three minutes later, he stood at the Bear's Cave.

Still no trace of her. The passage between the school wall and the trees was deserted. He started as an automatic light came on, feeling exposed in its sudden glare. It cast the bushes under the trees into sharp relief, their dense twigs now dazzling rods behind which anything might have hidden.

"Theresa?"

Had she really written that note?

And as he stood there, it crept upon him that this was just how a trap might look as you walked into it ...

Had someone overheard them in the locker room and tried to get him into trouble? Perhaps there were cameras here filming his trespass around his old school ...

Hardly breathing, he slipped into the darkness of the bushes and felt the branchless space open up where it had always been. This was where she had to be. Right here. He looked up at the black shapes of the leafless branches against the dimly light-polluted night clouds, half hoping to see her clinging to one of them like a monkey, half afraid to see someone else instead.

"Theresa? ... Tessy?"

"Felix?"

The voice was quiet, but he would never mistake it again. She was there. They were safe, alone together in a lost place with all the time they needed.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey ..." A slim shape moved in the dark a few yards in front of him, approaching him.

She slowed as he stepped forward too and a moment later they had come to rest against each other.

Cold air still touched his face and the back of his hands. Everywhere else his clothes and Theresa were warm and soft about him, hands and hair and waist and bosom. He felt her arms speak in gentle unison with his own: stay here. Simply stay here. And the morning flooded back to him with the memory of his skin and ears.

He became aware of a slide-show of memories: himself battling a gale on his bike, rolling about the school football pitch, mud on his grazed knees and elbows, up at grim hours to finish tomorrow's uni presentation, trembling as he waited his turn during the piano competition, never appreciating the music ... How hard I've been working, he thought. And for how little.

He felt himself come of age in her embrace. Here was happiness without noise or battle, happiness that told you it was here to stay, that you need not panic, show off or defeat anyone. Here was peace to breathe. If there was anything he still wanted, then it was to give it back to her.

"I ..."

"Yes?"

"You can laugh about this, but ... I sort of feel right now that things can be coped with."

She chuckled, then held a short silence. "Yes," she said eventually. "I'm also feeling that, you know, this is how to be."

"Well ... thank you."

"You, too," she answered in a low voice, close to his ear.

A plaintive honking call sounded from above them, moving across the sky and echoing among the school building's walls.

"Canada goose," Theresa stated, still not letting go of him.

"You know your birds?"

"Yes," she said. "At least the ones you'll see and hear around here."

"I'd like to learn that."

"I can take you for walks."

They were both silent again.

"I'm so glad we've made it here," she said at length, and he understood that she didn't mean their spot on the map. "I dreamt about it years ago ... back at school."

"I wish you'd told me back then ..."

"I never had the guts."

"No, nor me ... Thank you for making this happen."

She laughed. "I think we'd better thank Alice. She was the ... seamstress."

He thrilled at the word. "We kind of lost each other at school," he said, thinking of their final years.

"I know," she answered, and he heard a long, thin scar in her voice.

He instinctively rearranged his arms to hold her more completely, gratefully, soothingly. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Me too," she said. "I never tried to keep you either."

He felt her heave with sudden emotion and it steadied him. He felt honoured to be supporting the girl who had helped raise him, today and in years past. It felt like a rite of passage ... And yet, through all of it, her tension puzzled him. Where was its cause? Did the memory of loneliness really weigh on her right now? ... But slowly, murmur by murmur, his calm seemed to spread through her.

"Let's sit somewhere," she said, finally, loosening her grip ever so slightly, and as he responded they half broke apart.

"Remember how we used to sit under that tree?" he asked, memory returning as he saw it.

"Oh, yes ... I wonder whether we'll still fit."

They moved, one arm still around each other, towards the bulging trunk and roots of a great beech and arranged themselves among them as snugly as they could.

She looked about. "It's so small here now. This was huge when we were twelve."

"Yes ... I seem to remember the tree was thousands of miles high ... You could to see Nanga Parbat from the top."

"Oh, yes ..." She laughed. "But not Taumatawhakatangi-etcetera. You were adamant about that."

"Well, you have to face the facts of life."

Another goose honked overhead.

"Remember that free period when Mr. Hitchens was giving classes on the second floor?" she said.

"You mean when they spotted us among the branches through the window and started waving?"

"Yes ... and we ended up in detention together."

"Even though I told them we were nascent mountaineers. And treeeers."

"Yes, funny how that didn't sway them."

"It's not like we weren't the stars."

They both laughed.

"Bet you they had their own idea what we were doing up there," she said between laughs.

"Perhaps they'd feel vindicated now."

She said nothing and he turned to check her face but it was too dark to see much of her expression, let alone her eyes. Another memory surfaced.

"And we used to play hide and seek, didn't we?"

"Ha," she said. "Yes. And you always picked the waste paper bins after two or three goes. I thought you were more creative."

"That's a challenge. Want another try?"

She gave a tired little chuckle. "I'm feeling kind of exhausted, actually."

"OK, just an idea ... "

"I think I just want to keep sitting here with you --sorry to be boring."

"No, I'll do that all day ... well, night."

They fell silent again. Felix still felt brimful of things to say, but somehow none of the many silent seconds seemed quite right. Eventually, though, one of them got out.

"Tessy, I love talking to you ... and listening to you."

She said nothing, but drew closer, leant against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"You don't get mad when I say something weird," he went on, struggling to keep his voice steady. "And you keep surprising me. More than most people. And I'm not sure I've ever seen you angry."

"I hate getting angry. It's not how I see myself ... I mean, I guess there are worthy occasions."

Another five seconds passed in silence.

"And I don't know whether you know this," he continued very quietly, as her ear was very near his mouth. "But when you're there, looking anywhere else seems like a pretty stupid idea."

He felt the sharp jolt of her laugh. "Thanks ... I'll remember that before taking your passenger seat."

"Well, I might manage it to save my life."

"Ha ... No, seriously, thank you, Felix. ... I hope that'll last."

"Maybe it'll grow with us ... When I was ten girls were nice but young women were boring. Maybe when I'm sixty I'll find young women pretty but you beautiful."

"You think it can work like that?"

"Yes ... a smile is more remarkable on an old face. Maybe being old helps you see that."

"That's a good thought. I hope I'll still be smiling."

"I hope I'll be around for it."

He sat there, feeling her gratitude. It was hard to doubt they would still be doing this when her hair was grey and his going. "And," he added, returning to the present. "Sorry to be superficial ... but I really like your curls."

"Yours are pretty decent, too."

"Do you mind if I touch them?"

She chuckled. "Why should I be bothered if you touch yourself?"

"Er, I meant--"

"I know what you meant," she whispered, snuggling further into his embrace. "No. You can touch me, Felix."

Her words seemed to echo. Felix felt he was landing on an undiscovered island. His left arm was still around her waist. Cautiously his other hand reached out for her shore. And she remained leaning against him, docile as he reverently explored the shape of her head, tracing her hair down onto her left shoulder, taking time to stroke that as well.

"You're really gentle," she said after a while. "And you're beautiful, Felix. You really are."

"I'm not sure I'm too shapely," he said, but couldn't hold back the beams. So she did think so.

"Well, I am."

"I know you are."

"Sure, I mean," she said laughing. "But thank you for your ... repeated ..."

"Staring?"

They both laughed and for a moment he was back in the locker room with her. And for just that moment he pictured their clothes fading, leaving just her and him huddled together under a tree, warming each other in the November night ... Was she imagining the same? Clothes were flimsy things ...

"But that's not even the point," Theresa went on, cutting through his reverie. "It's partly what you say and do, but It's also your face. I essayed about this in my diary."

"About my face?"

"Yes."

"Wow ..."

"I don't mean the shape of your features. That's mostly chance. I mean their language and rhythms: what they say and how. It's hard to pin down ... It's your expressions, their speed or slowness, the sequences they favour, and the stories that tells."

Felix suppressed an urge to thank her or comment. He realised he was listening to something rare and held back to let it unfold and absorb it.

"You have --I don't know how else to word this-- an enlightened smile. It seems to come easily but armoured in steel, as though it's well aware of the unhappiness it's had to beat in the past and ready to fight it again. But it's not the grim, wise-old-guy-smile that says I see the light, but you don't even see the tunnel. The look you give me is much younger, much more respectful, more interested and positive and confident in me. And it's a calm interest, like you're very open to me but don't fear I'll hurt you."