Castles Made of Sand (11 page)

She sat down on the wet grass. ‘Listen. You two said let’s be a threesome, and I agreed. I remember that. I don’t remember where I signed anything saying, if I fuck Sage Ax has to be in the room, or vice versa. Correct me if I’m wrong. You both love me, I love both of you. Any fool can see you’re madly in love with each other, or you wouldn’t be sitting out here sobbing like broken-hearted fools. When we all had sex together it seemed to work. One of you tell me,
what is the fucking problem?
’

‘There’s a problem,’ said Ax. ‘There’s a problem with this manipulative bastard, rewriting history.’

‘
Me? Manipulative?
How the fuck do you make that out?’

‘Oh God. Well, I don’t care. I’ve got a
pitiful
hangover, I feel sick and I can’t keep my head up. I’m going to lie down here for a while in this puddle. Wake me up when you’ve finished yelling at each other.’

Fiorinda suited her action to her words. The rain started getting heavier. The Dictator and his Minister sat on their lumps of concrete.

‘Good sex?’ said Ax at last.

‘Brilliant.’

‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’ said Ax, deliberately.

Their eyes met. There’s nothing either one of them can claim for himself alone. No secret thing she does, that she might not do with the other. It’s horrible. Sage nodded. Yeah, brother. Got the message. They stared at each other, for once contemplating this disaster, this terrible thing that has happened to them, in the centre of their lives: without any colouration, in its naked truth. There is no way out. It can’t be fixed. There is
no solution
. Unsmiling, but with a strange lessening of tension, they looked away.

Several minutes passed.

Sage wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘God, Ax. I’ve
missed
you.’

‘Wasn’t my idea.’

Silence.

‘Okay,’ said Ax. ‘I accept that I fucked up. To some extent.’

‘I shouldn’t have run out. But there was provocation.’

‘So what now? Are we going to try and force her to choose between us?’
And break her heart
, he added, by means of a glare she couldn’t see.

‘I don’t think we can,’ Sage answered, looking down at Fiorinda. Her eyes were closed, but of course she was listening to every word. ‘I think she’d quit us both. I’d have tried to take her off you years ago if I hadn’t spotted that.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘No problem.’ He wanted to draw Ax’s attention to the shadow under her lashes, the lovely angle of her cheekbones, to the reckless curve of her sweet mouth, the natural rose-madder still traced in clean scarlet, pomegranate flower. ‘Why stop at two?’ he said fiercely. ‘Every man and woman in the world should worship her. She’s a
miracle
.’

‘Hm. Maybe we should remember this is purely a diplomatic coma.’

‘Don’t care.’ He poked the rock and roll brat with his foot. ‘Hey. You are amazing and wonderful and wise, and the best fuck in the universe.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ax. ‘All true. Fiorinda? You can wake up now.’

But Fiorinda had grown attached to her coma, and refused to stir. They headed back to Travellers’ Meadow, Sage carrying the babe.

‘So where were you last night, anyway? I brought a copy of
Unmasked
to the party for you, er, kind of a peace offering—’

‘But then, ironically, decided to screw my girlfriend instead. Makes perfect sense. I was in Hiroshima.’

‘
What?
Oh God, you did it!’

‘Yeah.’ Ax grinned wearily. ‘Yeah, we hacked the quarantine. Using my chip, and your code, and I don’t know what the difference was but this time it worked. It was fucking draining, and
could we talk about it later?
After I’ve had about thirty-six hours’ sleep?’

‘You’re mad,’ said Fiorinda, opening her eyes. ‘You’re both insane. You’ll get nicked, and then things will be a million times worse. Put me down, Sage.’

They’d reached the van. She stood looking from one to the other. ‘Well, what’s the verdict? Have you two decided you can handle sharing
the meat
?’

‘Ouch,’ said Ax. ‘I deserve that. I’m sorry, little cat. I’m just a jealous guy.’

Most unexpectedly, Fiorinda burst into tears and flung herself into her boyfriend’s arms crying, ‘
Oh, Ax. I’m sorry too
.’

At four in the afternoon Sage and Fiorinda were sitting outside the Continental Breakfast Bar in the arena. They’d just struggled through brunch at the hospitality benders with Dian Buckley—an informal get-together they’d apparently agreed upon at some point during the previous evening. Needless to say, they’d had no idea until Ax told them. In normal circumstances they’d have stood Dian up, without a qualm. She ought to know better than to prey on helpless drunks. After the way they’d behaved, they’d felt they had to go along and mend some fences.

Before brunch they’d organised the getaway, Ax having tearfully refused to organise anything, as he was so crap at it and had fucked up so badly last time. They’d left him sleeping in the van, while they arranged for Allie to look after their diaries, fixed for someone to go to the Brixton flat and pack bags, fixed for someone to drive the Volvo down (Ax had arrived by train this morning). As soon as the car arrived they were going back to Cornwall, to try again.

They’d ordered coffee, bread and jam (neither of them had touched the brunch), but they couldn’t eat. Sage kept catching startled glances from passers-by, amazed that he was still unmasked. Fiorinda sat in a foul miasma of patchouli. She’d had to borrow clothes from Anne-Marie, who lived in the hospitality area with her brood; or she’d have been chatting to Dian in the mandala frock. Her head felt broken and empty, a tub full of chemical fragments that didn’t know what the hell to do with each other. She wrapped her hands around her coffee bowl, trying to get them warm. The coffee was Crisis Blend, mainly ground roasted dandelion roots. It didn’t taste too bad, but it smelled like nothing.

‘Sage.’

‘Hn?’

‘Last night when we were alone, you told me you couldn’t do the threesome, no chance, never. You talked to Ax and it’s happening. Could you explain that?’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘No. I think you and your boyfriend will surely run off and leave me.’

If he’d been wearing the skull she’d have called the look she got
weary forbearance
, with a mix of
bleak resignation
. ‘You can trust me. I finally realised, you and your boyfriend are making me the best offer I’ll ever get in my life. I’m sorry it took me so long to grasp the concept.’

‘Hey.’ She grabbed his hand (Sage so lost to vanity he was out here in public not even hiding them: he
must
be feeling rough). ‘Knock that off. I love you both the same. Don’t you ever believe you come second. Don’t you
ever believe that
.’

Sage thought of the vision that Ax had forgotten. He had forgotten it himself: snapshot glimpses don’t last, they
vanish
. Yet he knew where they had been, though he remembered nothing… What will happen to Olwen Devi’s quest? Is the goal impossible to reach? Is it even desirable? The Zen Self had seemed so important, when he had nothing else. Now the reversal of his fortunes overwhelmed him: the straits he’d been in, even last night when he held her in his arms. The
terrible
look of that long lonely road ahead. He wanted to kneel at her feet.

‘Fiorinda.’

‘Now what?’

‘About those other sheep… I will be true to you.’

She stared at him, amazed. Then she laughed. ‘
Funny
Sage.’

‘I mean it.’

‘Give me a break. Aoxomoxoa monogamous? Don’t be silly.’

‘
Fuckit
, Fiorinda. Why will you never,
ever
take me seriously—?’

‘Oh! Shit! Did we arrange for someone to feed Elsie?’

‘Yeah, we did. The cat will be fed, don’t change the subject—’

The people of Reading arena passed by. She kept on holding his hand, feeling like driftwood, floating, her heart filled with golden light.

George and Dilip had been visiting the Leisure Centre deconstruction, which had become a Reading sideshow: recycling robotics, seething tanks of plastic-disassembling slime moulds, all kinds of interesting stuff. They came out in time to see the black Volvo handed over, in the alt.tech builders’ yard that used to be a car park. Ax had just arrived. Fiorinda hugs her boyfriend, Sage hugs him too. Ax chivvies them into the car, refusing to be distracted by some last-minute tale they want to tell—

‘Sweet,’ said Dilip.

‘You shoulda been at the van this morning,’ said George grimly. ‘Fuck. I thought there’d be murder done.’

Dilip stared at him. ‘I don’t believe it. Sage would never lift his hand to Ax.’

‘Maybe not. That’s not the way round it was going to be.’

For a moment they faced each other—big George and the fragile mixmaster, no taller than Fiorinda—like duellists’ seconds, but with loyalties the opposite from what you’d expect. Then they shrugged and resumed watching the departure. Fiorinda in the back, Ax and Sage in the front. Off they go.

‘It’ll end in tears,’ sighed George.

‘Because it always does,’ agreed Dilip.

But secretly they were hopeful. This isn’t your average no-brain rockstar menage à trois. This is
the Triumvirate
. Nothing is beyond their powers.

When they reached Tyller Pystri, long after midnight, it transpired that Sage had forgotten to call Ruthie Maynor. The house was dank and cold. There was no electricity, and no water coming out of the taps. They made up Sage’s bed, crawled between the sheets and slept, clinging to each other like refugees in a burned-out cellar.

The next day Fiorinda woke in sunlight. For a while she watched them, asleep in each other’s arms: Sage unmasked, Ax’s hair a dark, gleaming fan across the pillow. And how often do you see that? How often is Ax Preston relaxed enough to sleep in
Fiorinda
’s arms? Huh.

Well, she thought. That’s the size of it.

She got up and went out (remembering to leave them a note). In the garden she found a bed of wild strawberries, picked the ripe ones and carried them off, down the footpath that led to the stepping-stones across the Chy; and the short-cut to the village. Red berries, blue sky, yellow sun, the little river rushing and shining beside her, the larches and the hazels and the oak trees every shade of new tender green.

Later they joined her at the pub called the Powdermill. There wasn’t going to be electricity for at least a week: North Cornwall Renewables was having trouble with the wrong kind of waves. The spring-fed water supply, however, could be fixed. Ax arranged to borrow some tools—but not today. They stayed at the pub until evening, drinking beer and eating bread and cheese (the only food on offer, alas, no crisps, no Bombay Mix), and then headed back by road: Sage and Ax trying to convince Fiorinda that Ax’s visit to Japan had not strictly broken the quarantine. Ax had just harmlessly proved that the quarantine
could be
broken.

She was not impressed.

‘Just don’t do it again,’ she said. ‘Or if you do, I don’t want to know.’

Could they stay? Why not? They had bottled water, firewood, rapeseed oil for the lamps. The water in the Chy wasn’t safe to drink (
giardia
): but they could boil it if they were stuck… A little shy with each other: Fiorinda lit a fire, because the house was still cold. Ax and Sage recommenced work on the abandoned jigsaw. Fiorinda fetched a book from the landing and curled in an armchair. The room grew warm and dusky. The two men sat back, leaning against the sofa.

‘Fiorinda,’ said Sage, ‘Did you eat my strawberries?’

‘Yes.’

‘Told you,’ said Ax.

‘What’s wrong with me eating the strawberries? If you didn’t happen to be here, the slugs would have had them.’

‘Not so. Ruthie packs them up and sends them to me.’

‘God, that’s pathetic. You’re such a
baby
.’

She ditched her book and jumped on him. Ax watched them giggling and tussling and felt a momentary pang,
hey, unhand my girlfriend…
Then he remembered all the times the three of them had been together, and Sage and Fiorinda not allowed to touch each other. Sage’s pain; Fiorinda’s pain, that he couldn’t even bear to think of.
This is how it has to be
. There’s no other option.

He leaned over and cut in.

‘God, that feels weird,’ he complained. He was snogging a freshly stripped skull: Sage had put on the mask to go down the pub and forgotten to take it off. Fiorinda couldn’t care less, but Ax is such a fogey—

‘Sorry. Is that better, Sah?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ax. ‘Much better.’

How strange that three should be so different from two. The difference between a line from A to B and the whole world.

The sex was as good as last time, in fact, mysteriously, it made last time better, reaching back to undo the knots of tension in that remembered night. They kept going for a long time: practical, greedy, instinctive, mostly silent, only laughing and talking in the pauses between takes. At last there was a longer pause, the three of them tumbled on the bed in a lax, sweat-greased tangle of limbs.

They moved into an easier configuration. ‘Was there some wine?’ mumbled Sage.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Fiorinda.

They turned instantly to watch. Fiorinda walking away from you, naked in the firelight, there can’t be enough chances in a lifetime. Shoulder to shoulder, they glanced at each other, sharing the delight: and how appalling now to think how differently this could have ended: Ax not here in this room tonight, Sage with some other woman—

‘Oh. I’m afraid it’s a touch more than chambréed. Anyone for claret soup?’

‘Never mind, bring it here.’

She brought warm wine. Ax went and found some glasses. They toasted each other and settled again, Fiorinda curled up between them, her head on Ax’s ribs.

‘Anyone hungry?’ said Ax after a while.

Fiorinda giggled. ‘Ax is hungry.’

‘Okay, guilty. Ax is hungry. Sage, is there anything in that kitchen of yours that can be eaten, like, easily? Without any soaking of lentils or scraping of roots?’