Because She Loves Me (12 page)

‘Why?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie. If there was a tape of you having sex with another guy out there, it would be the last thing I’d want to see. Jesus.’

She didn’t respond.

‘Please, come back to bed. Don’t spoil the evening.’

But she wouldn’t move. ‘Do you ever wish you were still with her?’ she asked.

I laughed. But when I saw her expression I said, ‘You’re serious?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘You mean, leave
you
and go back to
her
?’

She nodded.

‘Why on earth would I want to do that? Karen and me – it was just a fling. It came with a built-in expiry date.’ I reached out for her. ‘We’re not like that, are we?’

Like a bubble bursting, her expression changed back to a smile. ‘Sorry. I was being an idiot.’

She slipped back beneath the quilt and cuddled up to me.

I told her that I loved her.

‘You swear?’ she said.

I laughed. ‘You want me to swear?’

She laughed too. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘OK,’ I said, holding up my hand like a Boy Scout, pleased that the conversation had swerved from serious to silly. ‘On my life. On my sister’s life. I love you.’

She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at me. She had stopped smiling and I felt confused. Were we messing about or was she taking this seriously? ‘Forever?’ she said.

‘Scout’s honour,’ I replied. ‘Until the day I die.’

In the middle of the night, I woke up needing the toilet. Charlie wasn’t in the bed. I got up and went into the dark living room.

‘What are you doing?’

I walked over. She was sitting, wrapped in a towel but goose-pimply with cold, staring at the little screen on the video camera. She was watching us having sex.

She looked up at me, her face flickering in the glow of the camera.

‘We’re perfect together,’ she said in a whisper, her eyes wide like she was telling me she’d just discovered that aliens really existed or that she’d found God.

I put my arm around her and took her back to bed.

Thirteen

I woke up late the next morning, having forgotten to set the alarm. Charlie was buried beneath the quilt and as soon as I saw the time – 10:20 a.m. – I nudged her.

‘Charlie, you’re really late for work.’

She made a low groaning noise. ‘I’m going to call in sick. I’m too tired to move.’ She groped for her phone and called the hospital, putting on a very convincing sick voice. I was impressed.

I knew I ought to get up and do some work but with Charlie sleeping beside me, and after such a weird night, I told myself I’d catch up later.

Charlie and I had lunch together, and she was trying to decide whether to go home or stay, when my doorbell rang.

‘Postman?’ Charlie asked.

‘I don’t know.’ But as I was going down the stairs, I remembered. It was Wednesday.

‘Hello Andrew,’ Kristi said, as I opened the door. ‘Oh. What is wrong?’

‘Huh? Oh, nothing. Come in.’

‘Am I late?’ She pulled her phone out of her bag and frowned at the screen.

‘No, no – it’s me. I’d completely forgotten you were coming.’ I noticed that she had a bruise on her cheek, and the hint of a black eye. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Why you ask?’

‘Oh. No reason.’ I didn’t want to pry into her private life. I followed her up the stairs, the smell of cigarettes wafting off her. As we entered the flat, Charlie was standing by the door, her bag on her shoulder.

‘Hello,’ Charlie said, smiling at Kristi. This was not Charlie’s genuine smile.

‘Hello.’ Kristi turned straight to me. ‘Andrew, you want me to do my usual?’

This was ridiculously awkward. ‘Yes, of course. We’re just going out. Let me give you the money now.’

I opened my wallet. It was empty.

‘How much is it?’ Charlie asked, opening her bag.

‘Sixteen pounds for two hours,’ Kristi said, looking around. The flat was messier than usual and probably stank of sex and the cannabis we’d been smoking occasionally. The bin was full of condoms and the bed wasn’t made.

Charlie handed Kristi £20 and told her to keep the change, as I always did. Then we left her to it.

It must have been zero degrees outside, the sky heavy with the threat of snow.

‘She looks like a model,’ Charlie said.

‘Who, Kristi?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Who do you think I’m talking about? A model who’s been beaten up.’

‘Maybe she had an accident.’

‘What, she walked into a door?’ Charlie craned her neck to look up at my flat.

‘What do you think I should do?’

Charlie sighed. ‘There’s probably nothing you can do. It’s a shame, though.’ She touched her own face, staring up at the building. ‘She really is beautiful. Shame she’s being exploited.’

‘Please don’t start that one again.’

Charlie narrowed her eyes and for a moment I thought she was going to launch into another tirade. But she merely said, again, ‘It’s a shame.’

The next day, I had a meeting with Karen to show her the work I’d done on her site, after which I was due to see Victor to talk about the Wowcom project.

Karen was less than enthusiastic when I showed her the mock-ups I’d been working on – that were overdue, in fact.

‘I think it needs some work,’ she said, casting her eye over the simple white and purple design I’d created. ‘It’s a bit . . .’ She pulled a face.

I was taken aback. I thought it looked elegant and professional. ‘But this is what you said you wanted.’

We were in the same coffee shop as before but her mood was completely different. Gone was the playfulness and ironic conversation of our last meeting. I had seen her like this before, when she was overtired or had had a run-in with her ex or a difficult client. Maybe that’s what had happened. She’d been given a hard time and was paying it forward.

‘I’m sorry Andrew, but I imagined it completely different to this. I thought it would have some more “wow.” My friend Cassie has just set up her own site. It looks better than this and she used a template she found online.’

I wondered who she’d been talking to. Had someone told her she was being ripped off?

I headed to Victor’s office in a bad mood, having agreed to re-do the work, which would mean at least another couple of days on it without any extra money. En route, I felt the need for friendly human contact, so I fired off a text to Charlie.

Fucking Karen doesn’t like the work I did – I have to do it all again. SO annoying. Xx

Charlie replied immediately.
What a bitch! I’m sure the work was brilliant. You should refuse to do it. xxx

No, I need the money. This is what it’s like being a freelancer but I’m sure she’s taking advantage of me. xxx

I think she’s always taken advantage of you. x

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so decided to change the subject.
Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? New Thai place just opened in H Hill. xxx

She replied.
I’m knackered. Quiet night in OK? Love you xxx PS, have you called Tilly lately, checked she’s OK? You should.

Good thinking. Quiet night in sounds good. Love you too. xxx

I called Tilly. Her mobile rang out so I tried the landline.

Rachel answered.

‘You haven’t been fired then,’ I said, without thinking.

‘No thanks to you.’

Oh dear. ‘I’m sorry. She kind of forced it out of me. She knows you were just trying to help though. Anyway, I’m glad you answered. How does she seem at the moment?’

Her voice dropped a few decibels. ‘She’s all right, yes. She seems brighter. I found her crying the other day—’

‘Oh God.’

‘—but she told me I shouldn’t worry about it. She said it’s just that she misses your mum and dad sometimes. And I think she misses you too.’

Rachel had a habit of stabbing me right where I was most vulnerable. Right in the guilt glands.

‘I’ll try to come down more,’ I said.

I remembered a conversation I’d had with Tilly after I’d bought my flat. ‘So,’ she had said. ‘Did you buy a flat on the fourth floor with no lift so I wouldn’t be able to visit you? Or are you planning on setting up some kind of winch and pulley system so you can haul me up the front of the building?’

I had been mortified. It genuinely hadn’t crossed my mind, when I had bought that flat, that Tilly would never be able to visit it. I was gripped by self-loathing and vowed to visit her frequently. Of course, she had been nice about it and told me not to worry, that she knew it was a bargain and that I wouldn’t be there forever. ‘Next time, though, get a ground floor flat, eh?’

‘I’ll come down soon,’ I said to Rachel now. ‘I’m sure Charlie would like to come and see Tilly too.’

‘Hang on, she’s coming,’ Rachel hissed, and then I was exchanging pleasantries with my sister. She didn’t have much time to talk but told me, quite impatiently, that she was fine, that I didn’t need to worry about her, but that she couldn’t wait to see me and Charlie again.

‘You’ve got a good one there,’ she said. ‘Try not to fuck it up.’

In contrast to Karen’s reaction to my work, Victor was full of enthusiasm about what I’d done for Wowcom.

‘You’re on fire,’ he said. ‘Now you’ve toned down the naughtiness a bit. I’ve gotta say, I never saw you as the controversial type. Must be the influence of your new bird.’ He looked me up and down. ‘You’ve lost weight too. Banging you ragged, is she? You lucky bastard.’

I didn’t know what to say.

Victor sat down on the adjacent sofa in his office.

‘Take my advice. Don’t marry her. Don’t have kids. Don’t even let her move in.’

I gestured at the large, happy family portrait on his desk: his cool-looking wife, Amanda, with her bleached blonde hair, and his tweenage son and daughter, big grins showing gappy teeth.

‘You’re telling me you’d rather have a casual girlfriend than your lovely family?’

He looked at the picture too, beaming with pride. ‘Nah, of course not. My family are everything to me. But those early days of a relationship – all that passion, the constant shagging, the lack of bickering about money and housework. Sometimes I’d like to go back to those days. Just for a week.’ He winked at me. ‘Maybe a month.’

‘Maybe you and Amanda should go away on holiday for a week, leave the kids with a babysitter.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, Andrew, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘Right?’

He fixed me with his most sincere look. ‘The work you’ve done on Wowcom has been first class. Just like your work always is. I’m impressed. And I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming and working for me. Here.’

‘You mean . . . as part of the company?’

‘Yeah. We’ve got a position available: senior designer. Darren, one of our seniors, is going off travelling or something ridiculous like that. As soon as he told me, I thought of you.’

I must have looked dumbstruck as he went on, ‘You don’t have to say yes or no now. I know you like working from home – lounging about in your pyjamas all day, not having to put up with office politics or share a bog with anyone else. But, I dunno, if I were you I’d get a bit lonely.’

‘I’m not lonely,’ I said, without much conviction. I looked out through the glass wall of his office at all the cool young people – a girl in a tight T-shirt stopping to chat to a guy with a beard; a pair of blokes heading outside for a cigarette break. There was lots of serious work going on, but Victor’s staff also appeared to like it here. It was a small business that punched above its weight.

‘Don’t make a decision now,’ he said. ‘I’ll email you the job spec and details of salary and all that boring stuff.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I know you’ve only been with this bird a month or whatever, but if you are thinking it might get serious, down the road, maybe you’d be better off with something more secure than freelancing.’ Perhaps sensing he was pushing it, he added, ‘But don’t let me twist your arm. All I’m saying is, there’s a job going, I’d love you to have it, and if you’d rather stay working at home in your jim-jams then I’ll probably be able to keep chucking work your way.’

Perhaps if I wasn’t feeling so pissed off about Karen rejecting my work or if Victor hadn’t slipped that ‘probably’ into his final sentence, I might have made a different decision.

I had always worked freelance, since leaving university. Because of the money I’d had from my parents’ insurance, I hadn’t needed a student loan and I hadn’t felt pressured to find a job immediately. I’d fallen into freelance work when a friend of a friend asked me to do some work for him and it had grown from there.