“No one else can help?”
Kim shrugged, and the problem was suddenly obvious. There were people who could—who would—help; he just didn’t want to ask. “Brix is off today. Calum too. Why don’t you call them?”
“How d’you know what Brix is up to?”
“Lee told me.”
“Yeah? What else did she tell you?”
“Nothing. I got the feeling she didn’t like me.”
“Don’t mind her. She’s a spiky motherfucker, but she’s got a good heart.”
That was something I’d have to see to believe. “All your friends seem nice. Why won’t you ask them for help?”
Kim shrugged. “They help me enough already.”
“How?”
“How do you think?”
“I don’t think anything, mate. That’s why I’m asking.”
Kim sighed again and kicked a lump of wood. “It ain’t easy to ask folk to help you when they’ve spent years carrying your sorry arse. I wouldn’t have a home if it wasn’t for Brix, or Lena. He gave her half the studio when I’d screwed up so bad we had nothing. She gave it back last year, but how the fuck am I supposed to ask him to collect driftwood on the beach for me when he’s already given me so much?”
I had no answer to that, and not for the first time, it struck me that I had much to learn about Kim and the effect his addiction had on his day-to-day life, even when he was dry. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that I know how all this makes you feel, but the way I see it, you have two choices: ask your friends for help, or tell my dad you’re going to be late. Whatever you do, you’ve got to reach out to someone, and there’s no shame in that. You’re human, Kim, not a bloody machine.”
The last sentence came out harsher than I’d intended, and Kim raised an eyebrow. “You sound like Lena.”
“Good. She had your back, now I’ve got it. So what are you going to do?”
Being late was apparently not an option, so Kim begrudgingly called Brix, who turned up at the workshop ten minutes later, with a man I presumed to be Calum.
Brix greeted me with a nod. “I’ll walk with you, if you want? Cal’s better with Kim when he’s in this mood.”
Fair enough. Brix drove his van down to the beach, and we set to work collecting sand-dried driftwood. Like Kim, Brix didn’t say a lot, but I enjoyed his company, and eagerly absorbed every insight of Kim he let slip.
Not that he told me much that I didn’t already know, something I absently voiced when we came to a stop by the rocks.
“Ah, I see.” Brix glanced behind us to where Kim and Calum were dragging huge lumps of wood back to the van. “You’re trying to figure out how to handle him, aren’t you?”
“Handle him? Nah, I just don’t know how to be there for him when he’s like this.”
Brix said nothing for a moment, focussing instead on shoving wood into the sack he carried, and then he straightened up and fixed me with a gaze that was a disarming mix of hope and sadness. “Kim’s a proud man. I don’t often know he’s been down until after the event. All I can say is keep him as close as he’ll let you, and don’t blame yourself if his demons get him anyway. You can’t control that shit any more than he can.”
“He told me he’s fucked everyone over at one time or other.”
Brix snorted. “It’s never gone down like that. The only help he’s had has been forced on him. He’s a bugger like that, and it drives me up the wall, which is why I leave him with Cal. That boy’s got the patience of a saint.”
The love in Brix’s gaze then made me feel like I was intruding on a private moment, even though Kim and Calum were too far away to feel the weight of Brix’s warm words.
We completed the rest of our wood forage in relative silence, catching up with Kim and Calum at the van. Calum, who I’d yet to speak to, approached me with a shy grin. “I think we’ve got enough. Brix is going to drive it back with Kim. Fancy a pint?”
Actually, I couldn’t imagine anything better, but guilt gnawed at my gut. Where was Kim’s relief? His quiet half hour to think of nothing but a soothing pint and gentle conversation—
“Go.” Kim elbowed me in the ribs. “I’ll find you later.”
“You sure?”