Charlie and Pearl (10 page)

The cold reality of winter is much harsher. Some people go to work in the dark and get home in the dark and spend the hours in between trapped in an office. No wonder people suffer from that Seasonal something or other disorder, the one where they have to stare at a blue light for 30 minutes.

It started to get dark earlier. Charlie and I used to eat on the deck
some nights
but eventually we had to admit defeat and move into the warmth of the dining room. We compensated by eating with the curtains open and a single tea light candle in the corner, so we could kind of pretend we were still outside, but that had its dangers; I cut my tongue licking my knife thinking it was my fork.

It hurt like the buggery
, a
n expression of Gran’s that when I said Charlie found hilarious.

Charlie.

It was so obvious how he felt about me. There was no attempt at pretence on his part. His face and his eyes reflected exactly how he was feeling at any given time and sometimes the adoration that beamed my way was comforting, and sometimes it was a little bit annoying. Who was he to adore me so much when he hardly knew anything about me?

Me, I was more confused. I told him I only wanted a friend and I meant it. But sometimes, I would watch him when he wasn’t looking, and I felt...maybe not quite as annoyed.

Sometimes I realised I was trying deliberately to make him laugh just to see the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

Sometimes when he was talking to me I would stare at his lips while they moved and remember how it felt to kiss him.

Not too bad, not too bad at all.

And then I would wonder what it would feel like to have those lips kissing other parts of my body; the hollow of my neck, the curve of my breasts.

We went to a movie one night, called Revolutionary Road. God it was scary. Not in a horror sense but in a
‘
that makes so much sense
’
, which is much, much worse. Kate and Leo, they played a married couple who promised they would never conform to stereotypes, but would instead live life to the fullest every day and never lose sight of their passion and adventurous spirits and it scared me because that was exactly the promises Adam and I used to breathe into each other’s mouths while we held on to each other too tightly. Kate and Leo, they got bogged down by mortgages and jobs
and children and then she went all haywire and the both had affairs and it all seemed a bit too scarily accurate and then she died. Horribly. I cried
.

Afterwards we drove home and I felt like I’d been through an emotional wringer. 

The way those characters felt was that way I felt, and if all that real life stuff could happen to them and to their marriage then did that mean it happened to every person and every marriage? Is that what happened to everyone? It was the moment I realised that just because I thought I was the only one who had the thoughts I had, who felt the way I felt, didn’t mean I was.

I couldn’t even look at Charlie because
together
we had just seen something that had been so raw and so apparently human and I was, irrationally perhaps, embarrassed.

CHARLIE

Pete died.

PEARL

All that stuff I was going on about...the drama and musings and soulful questioning and all that stuff...what the hell was I on about? It was all rubbishy bullshit.

I have been reminded about the hard lesson that is life.

And death.

I got a call from Charlie in the middle of the day. I didn’t know it was him at first because he didn’t speak and all I could hear was a kind of snuffling noise
, like a hedgehog makes in the dark
.

“Hello?” I said,
and then,
“who is this?”

“Pearl” he said, just before I was about to hang up on him.

“Charlie?”

“
Pearl
”

My heart quickened. I knew something was wrong and I didn’t want to hear it in case it was something bad, which was stupid because I know how these calls work, I’ve had these kinds of calls before, and bad news was
pretty much
guaranteed.

Gran is the last grandparent I have left. The other three have succumbed over the years, one to cancer, one to a heart condition and the other a broken heart.  One I never knew
,
the other two I was reasonably close with. So I’m no stranger to ‘those’ kinds of calls.

“Charlie what’s wrong?”

“Can you come?” he asked.

“Of course, where are you?”

“Home”

“I’ll be ther
e soon
.”

The whole drive there my mind was going crazy, was it his mum? Oh god, I wasn’t equipped to deal with that, no way. A grandparent? Better, selfishly for me, a known quantity, I could be comforting for that.
I knew from experience what to say and more importantly, what not to say.

But his boss never crossed my mind. I’d met Pete, several times in fact over the years. He was eccentric, an oddball. I didn’t get to know him. Why would I?

But Charlie was devastated.

His eyes made me want to cry, his normal spark was gone, they were wounded, hurt.

“Oh Charlie,” I said, “I’m so sorry”

And then I held him while he cried. While his shoulders shook and his tears soaked through my t-shirt and his sobs vibrated against my ribs. His vulnerability made me breathe deep.

I’m well aware that death can make the living do rash things. I’ve heard that more babies are conceived after funerals than weddings. Being reminded of the ultimate finality of life makes us panic, try to cram everything
we possibly can
in. Live all our dreams. For a brief time anyway, till the memory of the deceased becomes not as sharp, and
days pass where
you can think of them without crying, and the normality of life resumes.

I liked that Charlie didn’t try to ‘man up’.
He cried like a little boy cries, all heavy sobs and high pitched wails. I rubbed his back and made useless soothing noises.

He didn’t put on a brave face, or pretend that he wasn’t heartbroken.
He wore his grief on his face and in his voice and I found myself wondering if, one day, someone would grieve so openly and so honestly for me.

CHARLIE

Guilt sits on my head like a rain cloud.

I feel so guilty.

Not that the family is making me feel that way, because they’ve been nothing but nice. But still,
I haven’t been paying as much attention to Pete as maybe I should have.

I said this to Pearl and she, very reasonably, pointed out that even if I had been with Pete 100% of the time I couldn’t have foreseen the stroke coming that would kill him.

He wouldn’t have known, the doctors said. It happened while he slept and he simply wouldn’t have woken up.

But maybe there had been symptoms? Maybe he’d mentioned something, headaches or blurred vision or anything that might have been a clue and because I was such a stupid selfish self-obsessed son of a bitch I didn’t pick up on it?

I guess I will never know.

When he didn’t show up for work I knew something was wrong because no matter what year his mind was in, no matter what the weather was doing or how tired he was, Pete was at the bookshop at 7.30am every morning, with the morning paper and his packed lunch in a
battered blue tin, and when I would arrive
at 9.00am the shop
would be
warm, lit and ready for the day.

So when I got there and the shop was dark and the door was locked I knew straight away that something was wrong but I was too scared shitless to go to his house by myself so I called his sister in Auckland and she called the police and when I finally got the guts to drive around to his house I was just in time to see the undertaker wheeling his body
, cased in a blue bag,
out on a trolley
.
S
o I didn’t have to
see his
face.

But I can see it every time I close my eyes.

I am filled to the brim with regret that I didn’t do enough. I wasn’t there enough for him. He was just an awesome old guy who
really
didn’t deserve to die alone.

And I’m feeling guilty as hell that even while I’m feeling guilty and sad that’s Pete’s gone and I should have done more, all I can think about is Pearl, and how much I need to see her.

How much of a bad person does that make me?

Pretty bad I’m guessing.

PEARL

The funeral was today. I went along to support Charlie, even though it felt a little weird to be at the funeral of someone I barely knew, and I didn’t really have anything suitable to wear.  In the end I settled for black jeans and a coral pink
top
. I’ve always
preferred
a splash of colour at funerals.

Pete’s family comprised of two sisters and a handful of nieces and nephews and their extended families. It was an ok funeral, as far as funerals go. I’ve certainly been to better.
I’ve always felt
you can tell how much a person was loved by the kind of service their family throws them
. I’d say Pete was loved enough,
but not much more than that.

Charlie’s surprise blew me away though. I knew he was planning something but he
wouldn’t
tell me what.  We sat through the Hymns and the Lord’s Prayer and a eulogy that was thorough
in its chronology
, if not
terribly
emotive.

Then we stood
while
the coffin was carried out and placed into the back of the hearse, ready for its journey to the crematorium, and just before they closed the doors Charlie stepped forward and held up a hand,

“Wait” he said, and then beckoned to someone behind him.

A man stepped forward and lifted something to his lips and I realised it was a trumpet about the same time as he blew the first clear notes of the Last Post and I had to stifle a giggle because I knew that Pete had never actually been a soldier but this was exactly the kind of send off he would have liked.