Chasing Charlie (2 page)

Mouth: lips a little on the thin side, prone to looking worried in repose, not to mention dry. I smiled. At least my faithful pegs were still obediently lined up, only my eye teeth misbehaving, jutting out at a slight angle. The smile would do.

Hair: Christ. I dug my fingers into my greasy roots, attempting to liven it up into something that looked deliberately messy, rather than tragically rained on. I met Claudia's eye in the mirror.

‘Darling, your hair looks awful.'

‘Do you want to have a go at it?' I asked hopefully.

Claudia came closer and poked an experimental finger into my roots, her face looking as if she was poking something rodenty to check if it was dead or alive.

‘No.' She withdrew her finger and washed it under the tap.

‘I'm not that disgusting, am I?'

Claudia dried her hands on a paper towel. ‘No, darling, you're not. But your crazy hair in this weather is more than I can deal with tonight. I want to relax, not perform miracles.'

‘Thanks a lot.'

‘You're welcome.'

She was right, of course. And if even my dear Claudia thought I looked a mess, what would Charlie have thought tonight? I doubted I'd looked any more together when I'd seen him. I took one last look at the frizzy-haired face in the mirror. I would need a miracle to whip myself into shape. Amendment: I would need a whole bag full of miracles. A big bag. A mahoosive bag that would be impossible to carry on my own. I could see already those damn miracles were going to put my back out. They would be expensive. They would be elusive. I shook my head and grimaced. What the hell was I thinking?

We went home after that, back to Mara's flat, where I'd lived for the past two years. I was silent on the Tube. All I wanted to do when we got in was shut myself in my room and flick through my memories of Charlie, savouring each sweet moment one by one. I also needed to work out where I could magic the miracles that would help me win him back. I certainly didn't want any more surprises, or anything verging on emotionally taxing. So when we opened the door to the flat and found another gorgeous man sitting in the kitchen, this one brown and lean and smiley, I almost cried.

But Mara didn't. She squealed with excitement.

‘Ed! You're back early!'

SAM

Mara went straight to her twin and hugged him hard. Claudia followed, clucking like an excited chicken. He was home! Much excitement! But not from me. It's not that he's not lovely, because he is – everyone loves Ed – but I really didn't have the head space. And there was no way I could get away with slinking off to bed now.

Then Ed stepped over to hug me, and it was with a strength I wasn't expecting. Even with my head blurred with wine, I could tell that something was different about him, despite him only having been away a few months. He hadn't put on any weight but he seemed bigger – how was that possible?

I scraped together four clean glasses from the dishwasher and cupboard, and helped Claudia pull the table away from the wall so we could all fit around it. Growing up is such a random business. When I was younger I assumed that you'd just step into adulthood when you left home. But since I'd left that safety net, I was learning that growing up actually happened in little spurts, sometimes when you least expected it, and I definitely wasn't expecting Ed to seem so different . . . so wordly. He'd always seemed so consistent to me, a lanky version of Mara, sweet and quiet and very funny, and kind of – I can't put my finger on it – boyish I guess. I hadn't noticed it until I was sitting there at the kitchen table but before he went away, he wasn't one of those people who took up much space in a room. Not any more. Ed had returned from India a man.

Mara's cat George eyed me from his position at the fridge.

‘What?' Bloody thing, he always stared at me, unblinking, like I was the prime suspect in some complicated and extremely dodgy affair.

I couldn't hover in the kitchen forever. Mara would want to know what I was doing, fiddling about with her systems, so I squeezed into the ‘wedge chair' (so called because of its proximity to the cupboards) and helped myself to pizza. Not that Mara had noticed what I was or wasn't doing – she was all over Ed, cutting across Claudia's more reasonable questions with an uncharacteristic wheedle.

Claudia: ‘When did you fly in?'

Mara: ‘You didn't tell me you were coming home early . . .'

Claudia: ‘How was your trip?'

Mara: ‘Of course it's nice to see you, but why didn't you call me?'

Ed answered each question with that slow, smiley way of his. I put my head down and ate, half listening but not catching his eye. After the whirlwind of bumping into Charlie, and then coming home to Ed being all manned up, I was feeling testosteroned out. I know – that shouldn't be possible, right? A single girl like me, I should have been lapping it up. Ed was looking damn hot but it really was all too much.

Eventually he asked me a question.

‘You're quiet, Sam.' I looked up. Yip, he was definitely hot. Even the circles under his eyes were adding something to his face.

‘It's been a long day,' I said and shrugged, trying to ward off any more questions. But Ed waited for me to say more, his dark eyes seeing further into my head than I wanted him to.

‘I wouldn't have said it was possible but you're skinnier now than when you left,' I addressed his chest.

He ran his hands down brown stubbly cheeks.

‘I had giardia for the first month.'

‘You didn't tell me!' Mara yelped.

‘No, I didn't. I didn't want to worry you. It's perfectly normal anyway.'

‘It is?' Mara looked unconvinced.

‘Was it also normal not to wash?' Claudia sniffed him and made a face.

Ed's laugh showed teeth bright against his tan.

Mara stretched out a finger and scratched at her brother's forearm. ‘At least one layer of that tan of yours is grime,' she said.

I laughed then.

We sat and heard about Ed's trip for an hour or so, Claudia starting off the questioning with her easy charm. But after a bit we couldn't help ourselves. Mara, Claudia and I started jumping in and peppered Ed's stories with ones of our own. We have a good-sized shared stockpile of stories – scrapes narrowly avoided and characters met. After all, our friendship was born far away from here. We met each other when we were happily upside down in Melbourne, where we all worked as waitresses in a fantastically grubby steakhouse. We worked together, we partied together, we slept with loud, cussing Australian men – or at least that's what Claudia and I did. Mara fell in love with a small, intense, quiet Australian man who broke her heart and took her spirit for a while. What was I saying? She hadn't had the bottle to trust a man since. But still – we had great adventures together, with trips up and down the east coast, and then through Thailand on the way home. We dragged Mara out of the mire that was breaking up with Mark. And through everything that life's thrown at us since, we'd been best friends.

This didn't mean we always understood each other.

All through the evening, Mara wavered between looking happy and verging on pinched. I may have known her for nine years but she still confuses me. Just when I think she's going to react to something one way, she does the complete opposite. Like now. I know she's been missing Ed like crazy – they've got that whole close thing twins have going on – but here he is in her kitchen and she's tense. What's with that?

Eventually two o'clock rolled around and all I was thinking about was bed. I wanted to be alone and try to straighten out the day in my head in silence. When Claudia left to go home and Mara went to the sitting room to make up the futon, I saw my chance to escape and tried to get out of the wedge chair. But Ed held out a bottle.

‘Finish this with me first?' he asked.

And I don't know why but I thought I might as well. He doled out the last drops and I shoved my own wintery hands under the table. They looked sickly in comparison to his.

‘You're not tired?' I asked him.

‘Too excited to be back,' he said. He leant back in his chair and stretched out his legs, brushing my foot along the way. I moved away from him and waited for him to apologise but he didn't. Before he went away, he used to be so twitchy about physical contact he'd almost apologise in advance.

‘I've been talking all night. I want to know your news, Samantha Moriarty,' he said.

My news? I looked at the table. Only Charlie! Charlie! Charlie! Read all about it. But of course I wasn't about to blab to Ed about him. I forced my mind away from him. Think, woman. Here and now remember? Work. I could talk about work.

‘Well . . . work is all right, I suppose. Money's tight. I think with the recession there aren't as many commercials being shot at the moment, at least not big-budget ones. I don't know about it really. Sometimes I think I want to eventually move up from being a third to a first AD . . . but other times I just want to tell them all to cock off.' I smiled and then blushed at my choice of words. Move on, move on . . .

‘Love life . . .' I paused, my mind being tugged off to you-know-who again. ‘Erm, that's non-existent.' For the time being, I added silently.

‘Home life . . .' I went on. ‘Of course I love living here, having the park just there.' I pointed towards the front of the house, where Queen's Park lay just the other side of the street. Again, he was probably completely knackered but it felt like he was intensely watching every one of my gestures. It was unsettling. It wasn't at all like the Ed I remembered.

‘So life's OK I suppose. Just rolling along.'

Ed nodded. The clock on the wall ticked in the pause.

‘What about you? What brought you back so suddenly?' I asked him.

He looked at me for a moment before answering. ‘It seemed like the right time.'

‘Mara's quite ruffled seeing you again,' I said.

Ed looked down the hall towards the front room where we could hear her huffing and puffing over the futon.

‘Shall we go and help her?' I asked. There was a pause and then we laughed together. No, of course we wouldn't. That was our favourite game to play, being the lazy, errant children of ever-efficient Mara.

Our sniggering petered out and Ed took a sip of wine. He still hadn't given me an answer.

‘Mara's been quite preoccupied lately, a bit on the grumpy side. At first I thought it was me but then I started thinking she might be worried about you. And now you turn up?'

He looked at me from behind his Elvis Costello glasses and seemed to take forever to reply. And I don't know why but I was drawn to his mouth. It was as if I was seeing it for the first time and I thought, what beautiful lips. Followed swiftly by: what the hell am I doing? I looked up to his eyes again, feeling a little panicky. I can't be checking out my mate's lips. Ed's eyes were burning and for a crazy moment I actually thought that he was going to kiss me! But he didn't. Thank God.

‘Sam, there's something I'd like to speak to you about,' he said, very quietly, leaning in so close to me I could feel the heat of his scalp.

‘I'm all ears,' I replied. But I wasn't really. I was all beating heart and breathless chest, all prickly skin and completely and utterly freaked out. I was as far away from being all ears as it was possible to be.

‘Well I'm off to bed,' said a voice from the door.

Ed pulled back abruptly then. Mara was standing motionless and pale in the doorway. Guilt washed over me and I tried to smile, but it felt like I'd just bared my teeth. But Mara wasn't looking at me. She was staring at Ed, blinking at the man sitting at the table as if she didn't recognise him.

‘All right, Mars, see you in the morning,' he said, his voice strained.

After a spiky pause, Mara turned and went into her bedroom.

I stood up then. Enough was enough.

‘Look, I've got to go to bed,' I said.

‘Sure,' Ed replied, looking at his hands. He seemed a little defeated sitting there but I couldn't bear spending another second with him, which was unfair on Ed. It wasn't his fault – of course it wasn't. Ed had only rattled me. Charlie had started it all. It was all about Charlie. I had to check my phone.

ED

From: Ed Minkley

Date: Saturday, 31 January

To: Covington Green

Subject: Sam

Cov,

You were right – as soon as I saw her again I knew I was just as smitten and I don't know what I'm going to do about it. Tried talking to her last night but Mara came in and looked at me as if I had my hand in the till and I gave up. It's just like before I left, I'm still just her mate's brother. The good news is she says she's single, so what do I do? I know you're busy saving the planet and all that but what next? You were the one who convinced me to come back and give it a shot – I hold you responsible for my next move!

Ed

SAM

Saturday morning. I woke to the smell of coffee and for a moment felt flooded with happiness. Growing up, the smell of coffee always meant it was the weekend, with Mum and Dad at home, slow mornings spent in PJs nagging Dad to leave the paper and play with us. But I wasn't at home, of course. I was in my flat, with Mara, who always drank tea. And then I remembered. Ed was back! And in a millisecond my mind woke up and remembered the day before in a whoosh. Ed surprising us all in the kitchen, we'd been at the pub, I hadn't told the girls something, bumping into Charlie. Charlie! I scrabbled for my phone next to my bed, sending a pile of magazines onto the floor. Nothing. Sweet FA. I groaned.

Mara was in her chair at the table when I went through to the kitchen, her head bent over a crossword. It wasn't until she gave me a cool greeting that I remembered the weirdness of the previous night, with Ed getting all close and serious with me, and Mara looking so freaked out. I hovered in the doorway for a moment, rubbing my eyes. Should I talk about that right now? Get it all out? Probably, but to be honest, I just wanted a cuppa, so I left it. I was probably reading into everything too much anyway.

‘Coffee, Sam?' Ed asked. He was smiling an easy smile and I forgot worrying about the twins and me. Ed's coffee is not to be angsted over. It is one of life's true pleasures, to be savoured right down to the bottom of the cup.

‘You don't have to ask,' I said, and I sat down in my jim-jams to wait. There was no way I was going to do something as meaningless as showering when there was one of Ed's coffees on offer.

Mara may not drink coffee but while Ed was away she had cared for Ed's coffee machine like it belonged on an altar. Which was perfectly right of her. Ed's coffee machine – like his camera – was like a gift from God to him. Watching Ed then it was as if the squat little machine was the only coffee maker in the whole world. He touched it lightly, almost stroking it, going through the ritual of grinding, packing, cup placing, button pushing, milk frothing in this kind of erotic meditation. That sounds strange, I know, but somehow he made it all look like a perfectly reasonable way to spend your time. And the sounds that accompanied it – sniffing the beans as they were poured into the grinder, happy little grunts as the metal coffee holder clicked into place, the quiet ‘ah' as he added the milk to the silky blackness. It was better than television.

‘Here's one for you, Ed. City in India, home to the Red Fort,' Mara cut across Ed's blissful little moment.

He answered absently. ‘Delhi.'

‘Delhi.' Mara wrote it into the crossword.

‘OK. Another word for earache. Seven letters.'

‘Earache?' I offered, knowing I shouldn't. She never normally asked for help when it was just me – I rarely had anything of value to add. She looked up just long enough to wither at me. I poked my tongue out at her.

My phone beeped. I opened the message in lightning time, then threw the phone on the table in disgust when I saw who it was from.

‘Watch out!' Mara said as it skidded dangerously close to her crossword.

‘Keep your hair on, it's just a phone.'

‘Do you have to text at the breakfast table?' Yes, she really did say that.

‘This isn't the bloody breakfast table – it's just a table. Do we have a dining table hidden away somewhere, in a hidden dining room perhaps? Or even better, a table just for texting, in a hidden texting room perhaps?'

‘Sounds rude.' Ed came over with my coffee then, just in the nick of time. It wasn't fair of me to take out my disappointment on Mara. I took the coffee gratefully.

‘Who was it anyway?' he asked.

I took a sip before I answered, closing my eyes as the bitter syrup slid over my tongue. Beautifully textured, just the right temperature, with hints of smoke and caramel undertones. Fuck me, that's good. When I opened my eyes, Ed was smiling and Mara, bemused, was looking at me like I was a nutter, a look she gives me a lot.

‘It was the silly cow herself,' I said.

‘Who's that?' Ed asked.

‘Rebecca,' Mara and I answered at the same time. Mara smirked in my direction.

‘How did you know?' he asked Mara.

‘Lucky guess,' Mara answered, and returned to her crossword.

‘She's the only silly cow we know,' I explained. ‘It's just a pity I have to be related to her.'

‘Oh, your sister.' Ed finally caught up.

‘Unfortunately.'

Mara smirked at her paper again.

‘She's not that bad. In fact, she's quite fit if memory serves,' he said.

‘Fucking typical.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘I mean you're a typical man, sees a skinny girl and thinks she's hot. Did you not notice that she doesn't have the beautiful personality to go with it?'

‘She's amiable enough.'

I choked on my coffee. ‘You've got to be joking!'

Ed grinned. ‘Maybe I find her calculating gaze mysterious?'

‘You're bloody winding me up.'

I started smiling with him then. For a moment I was worried. I'm not sure I could be friends with someone who actually did like my sister.

I took another sip. ‘It wasn't actually Rebecca. It was Mum, texting me about Rebecca. Apparently she's split up from James. Mum wants me to check up on her.'

Mara groaned.

‘Exactly,' I said.

‘Exactly what?' Ed asked.

I caught Mara's eye again. We were forgetting to translate. The few months Ed had been away were obviously long enough for him to forget how the shorthand Mara and I use – built up over years of muttering semi (or otherwise) bitchily about other people – works.

‘Well?'

‘Sorry, Ed. When Rebecca breaks up with someone, we usually see more of her.'

Mara groaned again.

‘And that's a bad thing?' Ed asked.

I got up then. ‘Basically, Ed, you're too bloody nice.'

It was time for a shower. I went to find some clothes to take to the bathroom. That was the crazy thing about Ed – he was a seriously nice person and I'd never known him to judge someone else harshly, especially if he didn't know them well. Being so nice was bound to get him into trouble one of these days.