Chasing Charlie (21 page)

MARA

I was quite busy on Friday morning. It was getting closer to the annual book festival funded by the local council. Most likely, this would be the last time it ran, being one of many things coming under the council's sharp knife. The children's book readings were always at the library and the staff worked really hard to try to make it as welcoming and stimulating as possible, aiming to boost membership on the coat-tails of the festival. It was a fun week but unfortunately it never made significant differences to the membership stats. Yet another reason for the council to close the doors on this place before long. The spectre of closures was looming, bigger and darker every day, over my precious library. Closures that were apparently justified cuts that needed to be made in response to the economic downturn. Downturn, I mused, was a wholly unsatisfactory word to describe the rising tide of misery that those on the bottom of the food chain experienced. I worried that things were going to get so much worse before they got better. And, as for the library closing, I simply refused to think about it. Or at least I tried not to.

Ed called mid-morning to let me know that Sam was vomiting at home with a bug picked up at Kate's. And I surprised myself by having a wave of fury rise up and swamp me. Bloody Sam! Could she not keep her crappy little life to herself for once! No, she had to go and ask Kate for twisted diet advice. I knew all about these grape diets, having witnessed Kate do them for years, feeling torn apart with frustration that I couldn't do a thing about it. And now, silly Sam not only managed to come home with a bag of grapes, she was also infected. It was the last thing we needed in the house. Ed was going away on Monday on this big job. Never mind the big party Sam was going to. Honestly.

I sat seething at my desk and then took myself outside for a walk round the block. What was wrong with me? In normal circumstances, my reaction would have been one of sympathy. Instead I just felt angry with her. I stomped along the road, trying to pound the anger out of myself. The thing was, I realised, I felt squeezed into a corner right now. Worried about Ed, frustrated with Sam. Everything happening a bit too much in my face, not leaving me any space at home just to process life and be quiet.

I smelt him as soon as I walked through the door. Old Vern was back. He hadn't been in for a long time and I'd started to worry. I glanced at my staff, Cindy and Laura. Their faces were scrunched in disgust, which they dropped when I caught their eyes. They were both too young and cosseted to understand why I allowed Vern to read the paper every day, let alone worried when he hadn't been in for three weeks. They were scared of him and repulsed by his smell and couldn't see the human being underneath. But I didn't press the point with them – they'd come across misery in their own lives soon enough and have more empathy eventually. I strode over to them, quietly finding out how long he'd been there. Five minutes. My arrangement with him was for fifteen minutes a day. And usually you could set your watch by him at ten thirty.

I skirted around him to my office and pretended to work while I took surreptitious glances at him through the glass. He was hunched over the paper, his face close to the print. He looked paler and more drawn than usual. Where have you been, Vern? What are my own pathetic worries compared to yours? I wondered. And then I immediately chastised myself – was I just being a condescending, guilt-ridden, middle-class moaner? I sighed and looked at the clock. It had tipped past the fifteen minutes I usually allowed him. I stood up and reluctantly went and put my hand on Vern's shoulder.

‘Hello, Vern,' I said quietly. Loud noises often frightened him.

He didn't look up. His stomach was pressed against the table, his hands grasped together, almost in prayer. He looked even more vulnerable than usual and I felt my heart lurch again in sympathy. I looked at the page he had open. He was reading about Syria and the growing number of ordinary people forced from their homes, miserable story after miserable story recorded on the pages of
The Times
in grim little black-and-white type.

‘Vern,' I said again.

He grunted to show that he was listening.

‘It's time to go now, love.'

Vern sat back from the table, taking his hands away, and sighed.

‘Bad news, bad news,' he muttered.

‘Awful, Vern,' I agreed.

With difficulty he stood up and bent down to pick up his rucksack. The sum total of his belongings. He took one last, regretful look at the newspaper and then he turned, finally looking at me in the eye.

‘There are little ones with no place to be,' he muttered, angry and helpless all at once. I just nodded. Vern turned and shuffled out of the library.

I stood watching him go. I was aware of the stares from my staff and the couple of patrons at the desk, and wanted to shout at everyone to leave the man alone! He might live on the fringes but he cares about the heart of things more than can be said for you lot! But instead I took a deep breath and returned to my office and shut the door firmly behind me.

SAM

I put one foot on the floor and stood up, and stretched gingerly. I hadn't vomited since one o'clock that morning, the longest stretch so far. I took one foot towards the door. Maybe that's it then. I hoped so. I shuffled out to the kitchen and saw a note placed at perfect right angles to the edge of the kitchen table. Mara.

 

Ed and I are taking the kids out for the day.

Hope you're feeling better.

Back around 6ish.

M x

 

My heart sank. Mara's disapproval at me bringing a bug into the house managed to ooze from the scrap of paper. I hadn't exactly been up and about the previous night, bar the regular visits to my friend the toilet bowl, but from the snatches of conversation I did hear, even without hearing the content, Mara's annoyance was plain.

It's not my bloody fault! I wailed to myself and then clutched my stomach – greatly reduced, I couldn't help noticing – as a violent cramp took over. I staggered to the toilet and sat down, just in time. Perhaps, I thought to myself, doubled over in pain with my eyes squeezed shut, it wasn't actually a bad thing the others weren't here right now.

When they did come home I was dressing for the party. It felt like it had taken me the whole day just to get showered and have some toast and tea. My visits to the toilet had been frequent, lengthy and painful. A couple of times, I went from the toilet straight to my bed to curl up and sleep.

Mara knocked on the door when I returned and brought in a cup of tea.

‘You're not still going!' Mara's face, which had been wearing an expression of something like contrition, flicked into shock when she saw me in my dress.

‘Of course I am. I'm fine,' I insisted.

‘Have you stopped vomiting?' Mara set the cup on my desk.

‘Yes . . .'

Mara looked at me. ‘But?'

‘Nothing.' I buried my head in my wardrobe.

‘You paused.'

‘Did I?' I withdrew my head. ‘I didn't mean to.'

Mara's lips tightened. ‘You still look awful.'

‘Thanks! But skinnier, don't you think?' I pulled my dress tight against my stomach.

Mara sighed. ‘Do you want some supper before you go?'

‘No, I'll be all right. Don't have much of an appetite yet,' I said, and she left the room.

*

The venue was half full when I got there, which was a relief. I leant against the bar, not trying to look cool – although I hoped that's how it came across – but because I was recovering from the effort of getting there. I felt decidedly light-headed and as I waited for my drink I hungrily devoured half a bowl of peanuts before I'd realised what I'd done. I kept scanning the crowd for Charlie, obsessively wiping crumbs from the corner of my mouth as I did so, but he wasn't anywhere. I had spotted the toilet and judged I was within a fast trot of the door, should that be necessary. So far, so good. I wiped the corners of my mouth again.

‘Sam,' a familiar voice behind me called, and I turned.

‘Ed?' Had I forgotten something? I thought wildly for any other reason why he'd be here. Was something wrong? But he was all dressed up. What was going on?

He walked towards me, smiling, and from behind him, dressed in the most perfect little black dress you have ever seen, was Rebecca. Together they walked up to me.

‘Wh-wha—'

‘What are we doing here?' Rebecca finished for me, looking smug.

I blinked.

Rebecca laid her pretty head on the top of Ed's arm. ‘Dear Ed agreed to come as my date.'

‘Oh.'

I felt beads of sweat form over my top lip. My weeks of grooming in preparation for the party felt like they were unravelling before the neat little package that was my sister. And I wished she'd take her damn head off his arm. We all know how gorgeous and petite you are! I felt like screaming.

‘How are you holding up?' Ed whispered to me.

‘Top of the world. What are you—'

But I didn't get to finish my question. Charlie chose that moment to finally emerge from nowhere. He joined our awkward little party with a few smooth strides.

‘Ah, if it isn't the prettiest sisters from Petersfield.'

Rebecca tinkled her practised laugh again. My stomach gurgled. This wasn't the great reveal of Sam looking sexy in a dress I'd been working up to at all! Charlie was looking at me with a gleam in his eye – that was good. But I hadn't imagined this moment with the others there. And not feeling this bad! The room seemed to shudder around me. It sounded like everyone was shouting. I unpeeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I had to get my shit together and say something for God's sake.

‘Um, Charlie, this is Ed, Mara's brother.'

‘Yes, I know, I met him the other day,' Charlie shouted. He reached out and shook Ed's hand.

‘You did?'

Ed looked at me and shrugged. ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.' Even Ed, who had such a lovely voice, sounded like he was shouting.

Charlie laughed expansively, boom boom boom.

‘Now, let me get your drinks. What'll it be, Ed? Rebecca, your usual? Sam, ale?'

‘Make it a vodka tonic,' I muttered, excusing myself to teeter to the bathroom at a fast, thigh-clenching trot.

When I returned, Charlie was still standing there with Ed and Rebecca, and I could hear her laughing right across the room. Of course I knew Rebecca was going to be at the party but I hadn't expected her to bring Ed. Stupidly I thought that because no one had mentioned her all week the whole weird thing between Ed and Rebecca was dead in the water. But it obviously wasn't. I couldn't possibly just stand there in that little circle and make small talk, I couldn't.

The lamé clutch Claudia had leant me was on the bar next to them. I joined them long enough to pick it up and then moved a little way down the bar and took a seat. I soon got involved with an important text conversation with nobody. Charlie dropped my drink to me after a little while.

‘Here you go, gorgeous.' He nodded to the phone. ‘What's that about? Why aren't you with us?'

‘Work.' I put the phone face down so he couldn't see it.

‘On a Saturday night?'

I nodded and took a sip. Ick, it was strong. I felt like the whole world was too strong, too loud, too intense for me.

‘Well, you know what they say about all work and no play.' Charlie looked at me intensely. ‘You look so good tonight. Good enough to eat.'

It was working. It was actually working! I just wished I could stand up for more than a minute without feeling sick.

Charlie leant in again.

‘Look, I can't hang around talking to you by myself all night. It will happen though, OK? And in the meantime don't be a stranger.'

‘OK,' I managed, my voice tiny in comparison with his. ‘I'll try.' I said that bit to his back. He had gone, returning into the fray, under cover. I had to bide my time.

SAM

It was disgusting and it carried on all night. Rebecca twinkled and twirled and tried her best to outshine me with all the men in the room – in particular Charlie and Ed. It wasn't hard for her – I wasn't exactly able to strut my dress or sparkling personality around the room.

Can't you see she's faking it all! I seethed from the sidelines, sipping vodka on my empty stomach. It's all a big game – she's never going to give a shit about you, about any of you. In fact she's never going to care about anyone at all ever.

Eventually I got talking to some random man who was quite cute and funny, and I slowly began to relax a little. I wasn't going to go desperately pawing after Charlie. Rebecca's tinkling was attention-seeking enough. And there was this cute, funny fellow. I hadn't caught his name and I was missing sections of his banter but I picked up enough now and again to laugh.

I was amusing him with stories from shoots that had gone terribly wrong when an elegant arm wrapped its way around whatshisname's neck.

‘Luce!' he exclaimed, smiling a broad and genuine smile.

‘Hello, little brother, charming the ladies again are we?'

I swallowed and my insides dropped an inch. It was her.

‘This is Sam. Sam, this is Lucy, my sister.'

‘Oh, I know who she is.' Lucy looked at me. ‘An old friend of Charlie's – we've already met.'

‘Hi,' I smiled, terrified.

Lucy launched into a conversation with her brother about people I had never heard of. She was dressed in a simple satin dress the colour of oysters, with tiny little straps that showed off sculpted collarbones. I sat there, my bowels loosening by the second, my body sending out urgent alarm signals. Get to a toilet now! it was telling me. But I couldn't move. The coolness in Lucy's eyes and tone had frozen me to the spot. Eventually though, after what was probably seconds, my body took over and I stood up, muttered my excuses and teetered to the toilet.

Halfway there I felt a hot, wet intruder slip out into my pants.

Oh fuck, oh fuck! I tried to pick up speed, clenching the top of my thighs together even tighter, thankful that I'd decided against wearing a thong. I could see the door to the Ladies, almost there, almost there.

But suddenly he was there, muscling me off track into a dark corridor, his unmistakeable scent enveloping me.

‘Not now, I really need the loo!' I pleaded.

‘You are such a tease, I've hardly seen you all night,' Charlie admonished me in his smooth voice, taking my hand and pulling me out of a fire exit into the cold night. He had obviously had several more drinks since he saw me at the beginning of the night. It was making him reckless. Dangerous. We were in an alley down the side of the club. He took my wrists and pushed me against the wall, kissing me roughly. I tried kissing him back but the effort of keeping my bum closed and concentrating on his lips was too much. I wrenched away from him.

‘You having a good night then?' Distract him, that's what I needed to do.

‘It's better now,' he mumbled, his eyes glazed with drink, and he tried launching in towards my lips again.

‘Charlie, I'd love nothing more than to ravage you right now but honestly I really need to go to the loo.'

Charlie sighed and released my wrists, confidently running his hands down my body.

‘You do look good enough to eat, Sam,' he said huskily, and pushed his crotch into mine, ‘but I suppose I can wait a bit longer.'

Then he stood back and sniffed.

‘What's that smell?'

‘What smell?' I said, stepping into the doorway.

He sniffed around some more, his shirt open at the neck, hands in his pocket, swaying slightly. He was even more handsome, I noted, when he was drunk.

‘Oh, it's gone.' He kept sniffing. ‘That's strange.'

‘Probably something in the alley,' I called and bolted inside.

When I emerged from the toilet, having stuffed my soiled pants in the sanitary disposal bin, the atmosphere had changed. It felt like half the party was missing. The roar of conversation had gone, leaving only music. Those left were looking towards the door, where a bunch of people were all trying to get out at once. I could hear shouting from outside. It didn't sound good. I cast around for Charlie, Ed and Rebecca. No sign of them.

Suddenly Lucy's brother ran across the room and pushed his way outside, his face serious. I felt full of foreboding but my feet took me quickly across the room to follow him. Something was wrong. I had a dreadful feeling it would have something to do with me but I still had to know. Half the party were on the footpath. Someone was shouting in a shrill voice while a low voice rumbled in counterpoint. I skirted around the gawping half-moon of onlookers onto the road, only just getting out of the way of a cab as it pulled in. There – I finally had a view of the scene. It was Charlie and Lucy! He was pleading with her but she was having none of it.

‘Get your hands off me!' she shouted as she stepped towards the cab, a couple of her pretty friends trying to shoo Charlie away.

‘Lucy, don't go, this is crazy!'

‘No it's not,' Lucy yelled from the car. ‘It's over.'

And with that the car pulled away from the kerb and into the night, leaving Charlie reeling on the footpath, and his friends heading back to the bar, eager to get back to the main business of the evening.

Instinctively I rushed to him. ‘Are you OK, Charlie? What's going on?'

He stood swaying, his eyes still glazed. ‘Sheesh a fucking nightmare,' he mumbled, gazing in the direction the cab had gone.

‘Come on, come and have a drink.' I tugged on his arm softly.

He looked at me finally then, confused, as if he couldn't understand why I was there.

‘Charlie?' I said.

But he said nothing. He turned away from me and gazed at the disappearing cab, as if it was the only thing that existed in the world right then. In the argument with Lucy, his shirt had become untucked, his hair ruffled and his jacket was no longer sitting on his shoulders properly. He looked desperate. He looked totally heartbroken.

I felt the hope I had for that evening and all the desperate weeks leading up to it turn into sharp needles in my belly. I stepped back from him, almost turning my heel on the kerb, just steadying myself in time. This. Was. All. Wrong.

‘Come on, mate.' A couple of his friends barged in where I had been and clapped him on his back. ‘Come and celebrate, there's plenty more totty inside, come on!' They tried to move him out of the road but then Ed was there, shadowed by Rebecca, her make-up still looking as pristine as it did five hours ago. Another cab pulled up and Ed opened the door.

‘Just go home, mate,' he told Charlie as he negotiated him inside, somehow completely ignoring the vociferous complaints from his friends. Rebecca hovered by the door, one arm on Ed's back, like a little nurse guiding the doctor to the patient. She completely blanked me; I may as well have been invisible.

‘How do we make sure he gets home OK?' she chirruped to Ed. He didn't answer and leant in to talk to the driver, then shut the door firmly behind Charlie, effectively preventing anyone else speaking to him.

‘He'll be fine. He doesn't need any more liquor, that's for sure.' He was using such old-fashioned language but somehow making it sound right. ‘The driver knows where to go.'

The next thing I knew I was back inside. I don't remember walking back in. I was reeling from what I had just seen, trying to make sense of it, the furious screams of Lucy still ricocheting around my head. Had she seen us kissing? Is that why she took off? But I had kept an eye on the entrance to the alleyway the whole time and we were only out there for a minute, weren't we? The night was a jumble in my head. All night I'd felt outside of myself. Mara was right, I was in no fit state to be out, and instead I'd put a couple of vodkas on an empty stomach with my feet in heels. No wonder I felt so jangled. And Charlie had never felt so . . . aggressive before. That wasn't like him. It must have just seemed that way because I'd been feeling so unwell, so weak. He couldn't have been so forceful with me really. It was all in my head.

I looked around me at the deflated party, the punters swaying out the door to more exciting venues. I longed for the safety of my own bed more than I'd longed for anything all night.

At that moment Ed came up to me. He was holding my coat.

‘Here you go,' he said, gently helping me put it on.

I almost started crying with the relief of having my coat on.

‘Thank you. My hands are shaking.'

‘I'm not surprised. You look like you need to be in bed.'

‘Funny, that's just what I was thinking.'

Ed shook his head at me.

‘You look like your sister when you do that,' I said. I managed a small smile.

‘For once, I don't mind. Mara's right, you know, you are a worry, Sam Moriarty.' He put an arm round my shoulders and squeezed them.

‘You're not going, are you?' Rebecca appeared next to us. She looked as bright eyed and bushy tailed as she had at the beginning of the evening. I looked at Ed. Surely he won't want to stay here will he? The idea of him not being at my side as I trekked home was horrible. At that moment it felt like Ed was the only thing keeping me warm, upright and sane enough to get home to where I should be. But his face was blank, completely unreadable.

‘The night is young! Let's not let all that drama ruin Saturday night.' She did a little wiggle. ‘What do you think, Ed, time for a boogie?'

I looked at him again. What would he say?

‘No thanks. I'm going to take Sam home, she's not feeling well.'

Thank God.

Rebecca gave a little pout.

‘Aw, poor Sam. I would have thought you'd be bouncing off the walls seeing Lucy take off like that, not feeling all sorry for yourself—'

‘I'm feeling sick, actually—'

But Rebecca ploughed on. She wasn't listening to me. Her eyes had taken on an extra gleam. She was a cat about to pounce.

‘Not that you should be getting your hopes up. There's no way he would ever go backwards to you. He's moved on into a different world to you and it's not a world you're ever going to be a part of—'

‘OK, that's probably enough, Rebecca. I'm going to take Sam home.'

‘Oh.' Rebecca looked crushed for moment then gave a little shrug. She leant up and gave Ed a peck on his cheek. ‘Too bad, Ed. I'll get you on the dance floor one day.'

‘Bye, Rebecca.'

Ed turned me round and led me to the door.

‘Get better soon, Sam. And forget about tonight,' Rebecca called out to me.

I didn't answer. Forget about tonight, she says. Forget about what? About Charlie kissing me roughly? About crapping my own pants? About him being heartbroken when his girlfriend took off? About the horrid words you just said to me?

Ed led me out into the cold night, his arm firmly round my shoulders. It stayed there all the way home.