Because She Loves Me (5 page)

Five

At some point during the next couple of days, I told Charlie about Tilly and my conversation with Rachel.

‘So I need to find something to try to cheer her up,’ I said. We were lying in bed. We had been in my bed for almost forty-eight hours, only leaving it to go to the bathroom or to eat or grab drinks.

‘You think that’s a better plan than simply talking to her?’

‘Well . . . I think what I’d like to do is take her out somewhere and then talk to her, rather than turn up and say I want to have a word with her.’

‘You’re lovely,’ she said.

I liked hearing her say things like that.

‘What kind of thing does she like doing?’ Charlie asked.

‘That’s the tricky part. She’s really into sport – she supports Arsenal, for her sins – and she loves swimming. Other than that, normal stuff.’ I shrugged. ‘Stuff that girls like.’

‘Stroking kittens, knitting, cooing over babies. That kind of thing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Having their nipples slowly licked while their boyfriend slides ever so slowly into them . . .’

‘Actually, Tilly is the only woman I know who’s even ruder than you.’

Charlie smiled. ‘I’d love to meet her.’

‘You will.’

‘And I’ll try to think of some ideas. You’re clearly a bit useless at that kind of stuff.’

‘True. Thank you.’

‘So. What I was saying about nipples . . .’

Charlie went home in the afternoon to do laundry and ‘some woman stuff,’ as she put it.

‘Not meeting your other boyfriend?’

She didn’t think it was funny. ‘I’m a one hundred per cent monogamous person. I hope you are too.’

‘Yes, of course.’ I pulled her against me. ‘Like I’d have enough energy left anyway.’

She kissed me softly. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

It was the first exchange we’d had that made me think that she saw us as boyfriend-girlfriend. Some men might have been frightened by this development but I was delighted.

When she came back later, she was carrying several carrier bags full of shopping. She produced a market stall’s worth of fresh vegetables from one bag – broccoli, red and yellow peppers, plump tomatoes, button mushrooms, a cauliflower smeared with mud – and a variety of spices and pulses from another. The third bag contained two bottles of wine. She opened one, commanded me to relax and have a drink and set about cooking what turned out to be the best curry I’ve ever eaten.

She rolled a couple of spliffs too, one of which she smoked with me while she was waiting for dinner to cook. I wasn’t normally into drugs of any kind – hadn’t been since university – but the weed made me feel so chilled and giggly that I wondered why I didn’t do it more often. After dinner I laid the quilt on the living room floor and we made slow, stoned love to a playlist of old soul classics Charlie found on Spotify: Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway. Writhing in slow motion on the floor, it felt like we were making love for hours, the rest of the world eradicated by the intense focus of our desire for each other. It was extraordinary, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was like being in a fugue state, my whole body alive and humming, wanting to consume Charlie, to devour her, my mouth all over her, and hers all over me.

The trance was only broken when, in a stoned voice, I told Charlie her skin was ‘softer than kitten’s fur’ and she roared with laughter, and then I did too and within moments we were rolling about literally clutching our sides, barely able to breathe.

‘Ha, ha, bonk,’ I said, when I was able to get some air into my lungs.

‘What?’

‘It’s the sound—’ A convulsion of laughter stabbed at me. ‘The sound of a man laughing his head off.’

That set us off again.

Eventually, when we’d come down and calmed down, Charlie lay on her front beside me, legs crossed at the ankle, showing off the small mermaid tattoo on her right ankle, and said, ‘Can you get your sister to come up to London on Saturday?’

‘I expect so? Why?’

She laid her head on one side and smiled. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

Charlie asked me to meet her by the London Eye at noon. At Victoria station I steered Tilly through the vast crowds, many of them apparently heading to a football match. Tilly and I stopped en route to the taxi to grab a doughnut, my treat.

‘What’s all this in aid of?’ she asked in the back of a black cab.

‘The doughnut?’

‘The excursion! You don’t invite me up very often.’

Traffic was slow and I was concerned we’d be late to meet Charlie. No matter how much I’d begged, she wouldn’t tell me what she had planned.

‘Andrew?’ Tilly said.

‘I just thought it would be fun for us to spend a day together. Plus I want you to meet Charlie.’

‘Wow. You’ve only known her for two minutes.’

‘Yeah, but . . .’

‘Oh. Em. Gee.’ Tilly put on a silly voice. ‘My big brother is in el you vee.’

‘Stop it.’ But I knew my face must have gone pink. I groped for something else to say. Although Tilly seemed amused, I was worried that flaunting my new relationship, when I was supposed to be helping to cheer up my recently dumped sister, was going to have the reverse effect.

We sat and watched the scenery roll by, a thin mist giving the London streets a soft-focus Saturday morning sheen. The cab dropped us by Borough Market. We were early and I wanted breakfast, so I bought us each a bacon roll, which made Tilly moan with pleasure, before heading down to the South Bank.

‘Doughnuts. Bacon rolls. Is your plan for today to fatten me up and sell me to a hungry troll?’

‘Damn. Rumbled.’

It was bitterly cold by the river and the Thames was the colour of a bruise, but the icy wind was invigorating, a wake-up slap that made my nose run and my eyes sting.

‘Dad would have said this was brass monkeys,’ Tilly commented.

‘Are you too cold?’ I asked.

‘No, I like it. I always think I’m at my most attractive when my teeth are chattering and my nose is red.’

As we neared the London Eye, where Charlie had asked us to meet her, the morning crowds thickened. A street performer covered head-to-toe in silver robot make-up was setting up and the skater kids were already doing their stuff. Outside the National Film Theatre, early-morning shoppers browsed second-hand paperbacks. Then, in the distance, I saw Charlie and my heart did this little skipping thing.

‘That’s her.’

‘Where?’ Tilly asked.

‘The beautiful one.’

Tilly pointed to a bag lady enjoying an early-morning can of cider on a nearby bench. ‘What, her?’

‘Yes. It was the scent of her crusty hair that first drew me to her.’

Tilly laughed. ‘Hey, do you remember that homeless guy who used to live in Eastbourne – what was his name? Bobby Pole?’

Charlie had spotted us. She waved and walked towards us.

‘Yes. Bobby Pole. Mum said she saw him once in the indoor market.’

‘When he stopped and shook his trouser leg.’

‘And a fossilised turd fell out.’

Charlie arrived. She was wearing a long black coat and was wrapped in a scarf with a green woollen hat completing the winter look. Spots of pink burned in her pale cheeks. She looked adorable. She grinned, showing the little gap between her two front teeth. ‘What are you two laughing at?’

I told her the story of Bobby Pole and Charlie laughed like this was the funniest thing anyone she’d ever heard. Tilly and I joined in. I had never laughed as much as I had the last few days. I didn’t know if my stomach could take much more.

‘Tilly, this is Charlie,’ I said when I’d got my breath back. ‘Charlie, Tilly.’

They shook gloved hands.

‘So you’re the girl,’ Tilly said.

‘Oh no, don’t embarrass me,’ I said.

Tilly held up her hands, mock-innocent. ‘Hey, I’m not going to say a word.’

‘Please do,’ said Charlie.

‘So what are we doing?’ I asked, redirecting the conversation.

Charlie gestured behind her. ‘I’ve booked us tickets on the Eye to start with. Have you been on it before?’

Neither of us had. Tilly was delighted and wheeled herself along beside Charlie towards the big wheel, the two of them chatting like they’d known each other for years. Charlie gesticulated as she talked, her face animated. She looked like a movie star, the girl next door in an old American film, and I was struck by two emotions, one immediately following the other: joy, that she was with me; and fear, that at any moment she might disappear like she did after our first night out. I told myself to get a grip. Relax, enjoy it. She seemed to like me a lot. The way she looked at me reflected back the way I looked at her. And if she didn’t care about me, didn’t want to give this budding relationship the chance to bloom, she wouldn’t be here now, taking my sister out, would she?

The London Eye was even better than I’d hoped, the city stretched out before us, proud and ancient and alive. Charlie pointed out her favourite buildings and Tilly recounted the time she and ‘a load of other wheelchair kids’ were taken to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. Charlie had a related story, about how the Queen had come to their school in Leeds and they’d all stood outside waving flags, hoping she’d brought her corgis with her.

‘I’m not a big fan of the royals now, though,’ she said.

‘Oh, are you a republican?’ Tilly asked.

Charlie waved a hand. ‘Actually, let’s not spoil the day with politics.’

I knew already, from watching the news with her, that anything Charlie saw as injustice made her angry. I had listened to her rage against some new policy the government had brought in, the so-called bedroom tax, and halfway through her diatribe I’d had to calm her down, pointing out that I wasn’t the prime minister and couldn’t do much about it. I liked the fact that she cared so much, though. It was another sign that she was a passionate person.

After the London Eye, we went on to Trafalgar Square and looked round the National Portrait Gallery.

‘Charlie’s an artist,’ I pointed out to Tilly.

‘An aspiring artist,’ Charlie said.

‘I really want to see some of your work,’ I said.

‘You will. Maybe you can pose for me.’

I was taken aback and Tilly laughed. ‘If you get Andrew to pose for you naked, please don’t ever show me the picture.’

That set them off again and led on to a conversation about penises that got ruder and ruder as we walked around the gallery, the two of them giggling like schoolgirls and pointing at portraits of historical figures and rock stars.

‘Six inches, I reckon.’

‘I’d say he’s got a nine-incher.’

‘A disappointment.’

Finally bored of this game, Charlie went into the gift shop and came out with a present for Tilly: a print of the Queen.

‘Next time you meet her, you can ask her to sign it,’ she said.

After that, Charlie surprised us by announcing that she had booked us a table at the excellent restaurant upstairs. ‘I’m paying,’ she said and when Tilly and I tried to protest she told us she’d won some cash on a scratchcard and was feeling flush.

We spent the afternoon walking around Covent Garden, looking in the shops, the two girls browsing the sales. Charlie bought herself a black silky top and bought me a new jumper, 50 per cent cashmere, which was exactly my kind of thing.