Flightsend (16 page)

Kieran turned to wave to Rosie. Oliver started up
the slope without him, then turned and waited; before
Kieran had caught up, he walked on again. Charlie
noticed that for all the touching Oliver did, he hadn't
touched Kieran once: no hug for a greeting, no
physical sign of affection at all. He'd barely spoken to
him, and then impatiently. He hadn't asked whether
he'd had a nice time, or admired the snail, or
explained why it was time to go. He treated Kieran as
an unwieldy piece of baggage.

Charlie watched them walking, together but apart.

She rarely thought about her own father, but now
she did.

Her father had abandoned her. Didn't want her,
didn't care. Money arrived in her mother's bank
account each month but there was never a letter,
never a phone call. He had no curiosity about her.
She'd grown up, become a person; but not to him.
He'd forgotten her.

She looked at Oliver's back as he walked up the
lawn, and thought:
I hate you
.

But no, she didn't. Didn't care enough to hate him.
She despised him.

Oliver Locke had less time for his own son than he
had for her. And for Francesca. She remembered him
saying he liked the Well House because of its distance
from the guests; that wasn't just for artistic isolation, as
she'd once liked to think. Had there been others
before Francesca? How had he got away with it?

Not any more, she thought. Not if he thinks I'm
going to play.

'Come on, Rosie,' she said. 'Time to find your
mum.'

Coming in, late, at the front gate of Flightsend,
Charlie almost tripped over four full dustbin bags left
outside. They were black, easy to fall over in the
near-darkness. Her mother had been having a
clear-out.

The downstairs lights were still on. Kathy was sitting
at the table reading a rose catalogue.

'Hi, Mum. What's in those bags?' Charlie asked,
fending off Caspar.

'Baby things,' Kathy said. 'I decided there's no point
hanging on to them any more. Someone put a flier
through the letterbox – there's a Salvation Army
collection tomorrow.'

'What –
all
of them?'

'I kept a little pair of shoes and a toy panda.
Everything else is in the bags. It's silly to clutter up the
loft when someone else can use the things.'

Well. Charlie didn't know what to say. Resisting
an urge to rush out and haul the bags back indoors, she
filled the kettle, making an unnecessary clatter with the
mugs and milk jug. Somehow, she'd provoked this by
showing her mother the drawings of Rosie.

'I was looking at Frühlingsmorgen this evening,'
Kathy said. 'And thinking that we ought to plant a
memorial rose of our own. A rose for Rose. You can
help me choose. We'll go to a specialist rose grower to
make sure we get exactly the one we want.'

'Yes. Good idea. Plant it here in the garden, you
mean? We'll stay here now, won't we?'

'I think so,' Kathy said. 'This is home now, isn't it? I
don't want anything else.'

Charlie looked at the kitchen shelf where she'd
propped Sean's postcard. She thought: if this is some
kind of final farewell, a putting to rest, he ought to be
involved, too.

'Mum, I—' she began.

'Mmm?' Kathy looked up from the catalogue.

'Oh – I – think it's a really good idea, the rose,'
Charlie said lamely.

She poured the tea and took hers up to bed. Picking
up
Emma
, she stared at a page sightlessly, thinking that
Sean would be at home now. For how long? He'd told
her that he was setting straight off again, for Turkey.
He was going on the cheap, he said, staying at Youth
Hostels wherever he could. That way he could stay for
three weeks.
Three weeks
– an interminable, unbearable
stretch of time. Charlie felt as if she'd never see him
again.

She was too hot. She threw back her quilt, opened
the window wider, tried again to read. No use. A moth
blundered against the lamp with a dry flicker of wings.
She turned off the lamp to usher it out of the window,
then stood for a while thinking. Sean was at home
now, at the other end of a telephone, not miles away
and inaccessible in Snowdonia or Turkey.

What would she say?

She couldn't phone now. Eleven at night was too
late to bother him.

She didn't know what to do. If she had felt ill
before, it was more like a fever now; she'd never sleep
tonight. She fidgeted, picked things up, put them
down again. What had Anne called her? Sensible,
mature? She ought to see me now, she thought.
Anyway, I don't want to be sensible and mature all the
time. I'm only sixteen and I want to behave like a
headstrong teenager for once. I've been sensible and
mature for Mum; at least, I've tried to be. Now I want
something for myself.

I want Sean.

I've got to talk to him.
Now
. Or go mad.

She heard bathroom sounds; her mother was
getting ready for bed. When the buzz of the shower
clicked on, Charlie crept down to the phone and
dialled Sean's number.

He picked up almost straight away. 'Sean Freeland.'

So easy. His voice in her ear, warm and close.

'Sean, it's me.' Charlie tried to sound normal.

'Hi there, Charleston! How's things?'

'Fine, thanks. I'm sorry to phone so late. I just
wanted' –
what?
– 'to see if you got home all right. I
mean, anything could have happened. You could have
fallen off Crib Goch. It looked terrifying.'

'Not this time, thanks. I held on tight.'

'You weren't asleep, were you? I hope you don't
mind me phoning so late. I've missed you.'

'Course I don't mind! No, I was just about to turn
in. I haven't been in long. Look, I was going
to come over tomorrow afternoon. Would that be OK?
I'll tell you all about it then.'

'You're coming here?'

'You don't have to sound so amazed. I won't get lost,
not after a whole week with map and compass.'

'I thought you were going straight off to Turkey?'

'Not till Monday,' Sean said.

Charlie bounded upstairs two at a time and into
bed.
Tomorrow!
Not three weeks ahead, not some time
in an unforeseeable future, but
tomorrow
. He needn't
come, he could find any number of reasons not to –
too tired, washing and packing to do, other people to
see – but he was coming here to see her. To see
her
.

She opened
Emma
. Chapter 47. Newly energized
and not at all sleepy, she thought she might finish the
book tonight.

She read:
It darted through her, with the speed of an
arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!

Mr Knightley. Sixteen years older than Emma.
Someone Emma had regarded as a sort of older
brother, or uncle, before realizing that she loved him.

Sean was thirteen years older than Charlie. Not sixteen.
Not as old as Mr Knightley.

Admittedly, Mr Knightley hadn't been the lover of
Emma's mother; not Jane Austen territory. All the
same, the similarities were there. Now she had to know
how
Emma
ended. Reading much too quickly, devouring
the words, she read to Chapter 49, where Mr
Knightley returned after an absence; Emma had been
longing to see him – yes, yes, he loved her, he was
telling her, they were clearing up all their misunderstandings.
By Chapter 50 Emma was in 'a flutter of
happiness'.

Charlie turned off her lamp, thinking of tomorrow,
wondering what she was expecting. Not Emma's
happy flutter; she didn't want any drastic change in
the relationship. Didn't want to spoil it. Didn't even
want Sean to touch her, other than to give his normal
hug. Caressing or kissing would be too creepily Oliver
Locke-like, crossing barriers that couldn't be crossed
yet. To Sean, she was Charleston, good old Charleston.
She was happy to go on being Charleston if it meant
Sean was her friend, if he sent postcards and made
time to be with her.

He loved her; she knew he did. Not in the dizzy,
sick-with-longing way she now loved him; but still. It
was more than enough to make her happy.

When the guests came in for Sunday breakfast,
Charlie sneaked a look round the doorway to see
where Oliver Locke was sitting.

'You do this end, I'll do the other,' she said to
Suzanne.

'OK. You get the newly-assertive. Don't give them
burnt toast or slopped coffee.'

Charlie had successfully avoided Oliver all weekend.
He'd tried to talk to her on Friday night, cornering
her in the entrance hall: 'Look, I'm sorry if you didn't
like having Kieran. I won't ask you again.'

He was so thick-skinned; he didn't understand at all.
Aloof, Charlie told him, 'I liked having Kieran. He's
great. I don't mind having him again.' It's
you
I've
taken a dislike to, she added silently, moving off with
her tray of glasses before he could say more. At each
meal-time since, she'd made sure Suzanne did the
waitressing for his end of the table. ('What, did he
pinch your bum, or something?' Suzanne asked. 'I'm
still waiting for him to pinch mine.') Charlie didn't
want to see more of Oliver than she had to; but at
dinner she noticed that he'd seated himself next to
the youngest and most attractive woman on his course,
and was giving her the full dazzle of attentiveness and
charm.

When the breakfast tables had been cleared and the
dishwashers stacked, Charlie had toast and coffee with
Jon and Suzanne before leaving for home. Oliver and
his group had set up their easels on the lawn. It would
have been good to learn water-colour technique, but
she no longer wanted Oliver to be the one to teach
her. She felt ashamed of her recent wish to produce
something that would win his praise. Until she went
back to school, she'd work for her own approval, no
one else's. There were always two groups of students
for sixth-form Art; she'd ask to be in Ms Pearson's class
rather than Oliver's.

Today Dietmar was coming for lunch. Charlie
couldn't remember when her mother had last cooked
for a visitor, other than Anne; when Charlie left she'd
been in the full fluster of preparation. As she'd be
back at Nightingales at lunchtime, Charlie thought
she'd leave her mother to it, and take Caspar out.

In a few hours' time, she'd see Sean.

Perhaps it wasn't a good idea for Sean to come at
the same time as Dietmar. Last night, overwhelmed by
the thought of seeing him at all, she'd forgotten that
small detail. Perhaps Mum and Dietmar would go out
after lunch . . .

She rounded the bend towards the village green
and there Sean was, walking towards her.

Charlie stopped. She had conjured him so often
into her thoughts that she almost thought he was a
mirage. This
afternoon
, he'd said.

He smiled, waved, came up to her. 'Are you OK,
Charleston? You look like you've seen a ghost.'

'I'm fine,' she said, her words muffled into his
shoulder as he hugged her. He smelled freshly-showered,
of mint shampoo and something
astringent. Just for a second she let herself imagine it
was a real, romantic embrace.

'Kathy said I'd find you at Nightingales,' he said.
'She was frantically chopping and weighing things.'

'She's got someone coming for lunch.'

'Yes, she told me. The German guy.'

'Oh,' Charlie said uneasily. 'I hope she wasn't – you
know, rude or anything? You know how she can be. I
thought you said this afternoon?'

'Yes, I did, but then the bloke in the flat downstairs
asked if I'd help unload a piano this afternoon, so I'm
here now. And no, Kathy was all right. She even made
me coffee while I waited, because she said you'd be
busy. She said why don't I get you to show me round
Nightingales.'

'OK. Let's go back there. You haven't got long,
though, if you're sorting yourself out for Turkey
and
heaving pianos. Actually
I
haven't got long.' She
looked at her watch. 'We start getting ready for lunch
at half-past eleven.'

'Better than nothing. I'd like to see Nightingales,
anyway, after hearing so much about it.'

Having spent all week in imaginary conversation
with Sean, Charlie couldn't now remember a single
thing she'd wanted to say. She walked beside him, trying
to fix every detail in her mind to be taken out later,
and treasured. His feet, in black laced boots, walking
beside hers. His sideways look and smile; the exact
green-brown of his eyes. The husky note in his voice
when he laughed.

He told her about his week in Wales, about the Crib
Goch climb and the micro-navigation, by which time
they were in the grounds of Nightingales, outside the
dining-room window. Kathy's garden design was
beginning to take shape. Builders had been in to lay
the paths and to make the raised pond on the terrace,
and soon Kathy would start the planting.

'It's all bare and new at the moment,' Charlie said,
'but if you imagine it with shrubs and plants, it'll look
really good. Mum's shown me the drawings.'

Sean looked round at the mullioned windows and
the rampant wisteria. 'It'll suit the house. She ought to
do more of this. She's good at it.'

'Yes, I think she will, now. This was a good start,
because lots of people will see it. Fay said Mum ought
to put an advert in the entrance hall. She even wants
Mum to be a course tutor. I think Mum ought to,
because it'll bring in some money
and
make sure
people have heard of her. It's not as if she doesn't
know how to teach.'

She took Sean round to the other side of the house,
through the courtyard and out to the main slope of
lawn. She'd forgotten Oliver, out here with his group.
He was talking to one of the students, crouching by
the easel, gesturing with one hand.

'Oh – I forgot to tell you Oliver Locke's here for the
weekend,' Charlie said. 'Do you want to go down and
say hello?'

'I don't think so,' Sean said. 'Let's not disturb him.'

Charlie caught something in his tone. 'You don't
like him, do you?'

'Not much,' Sean said.

'Why not?'

'Doesn't matter. Let's just say I don't come across
him much at school, and I'm quite happy with that.'

Charlie remembered talking to Oliver under the
mulberry tree, mentioning Sean; Oliver saying, 'He's
one of those muscular, athletic types that makes the
rest of us feel flabby and wimpish.' Charlie heard now
what she hadn't at the time: sarcasm, disparagement.
It had been said as a joke, but not entirely a
good-natured one. Oliver had a way of turning such
things into a put-down: Sean was a
type
, not a person;
he was fit and sporty, therefore, Oliver's tone implied,
he had no brain. If Oliver made such a remark now,
she'd say something sharp in retort. She couldn't
think why it had taken her so long to see through
Oliver Locke.

She began to tell Sean about Kieran as they walked
slowly towards the house. Then Rosie came out of the
open door and ran down the grass towards them.

'Tarlie, Tarlie!' She raised her arms, wanting to be
picked up.

'Rosie!' Charlie lifted her, swung her high, put her
down again. 'Rosie, this is Sean.'

'Torn,' Rosie said, with the sly smile that meant she
was mispronouncing on purpose. She put her head on
one side and looked appealingly at Charlie. 'I want to
play with
Tie
ran.'

'No, Kieran's not here today,' Charlie said. 'D'you
want to come for a walk with us?'

Then she glanced at Sean.

She hadn't even thought about it. She was used to
Rosie now: to the name, to Rosie herself. Even Kathy,
after running away that first time, had got used to
seeing her here. Charlie was tuned to her mother's
loss – always trying to protect her from the hurt of a
chance sighting or a misplaced word. But Rose
would have been Sean's child too.

He was gazing at Rosie, his eyes shiny with tears.
Charlie felt herself tingling with confusion.

'Oh God, Sean, I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't think.'

He didn't answer; he blinked furiously and rubbed
at his eyes with a forefinger. Charlie wondered
whether to give him her tissue; men never seemed to
have them. Her own eyes filled with tears in sympathy
as she picked Rosie up and cuddled her. Then she
heard a loud, unmistakable voice from the rose
garden. It declaimed: 'Of course there's such a wide
interest these days that you shouldn't have trouble filling
a course, and I'm sure Jiminy will step into the
breach at the shop,' and Henrietta walked through
the archway with Fay. It was too late to hurry away in
another direction without looking rude, and anyway
Charlie had Rosie in her arms. She tried to compose
her face, and was about to introduce Sean to Fay when
Henrietta stepped forward, getting in first.

'It's Sean, isn't it? We met before. I see you're like
me, a sufferer from pollen allergy. These roses are gorgeous
but they do make us pay a price for their beauty,
don't they? You must come into the shop and look at
my homeopathic remedies. I carry quite a range.'

'Henrietta's going to run a course on herbal healing,'
Fay explained.

Charlie did the introduction. Sean, sniffy but under
control, said some complimentary things about
Nightingales. Fay said, 'I'll take Rosie indoors. Dan
was supposed to be looking after her, but she's
managed to escape. Would you like to come in for
coffee?'

'Thanks, but I must be going,' Sean said.

'Let's take you back to your dad then, Miss
Runaway,' Fay said to Rosie, taking her from Charlie.
She and Henrietta walked on up to the house;
Charlie and Sean went through to the courtyard.

'I'm sorry,' Charlie said again. 'About Rosie. I never
even thought—'

'It's all right,' Sean said. 'I ought to be used to it by
now, seeing other people's children, hearing about
them. But every now and then it just gets me – seeing
that little girl come to you, you picking her up – it's
how things might have been, if—'

'Yes. I know.'

They sat on the bench. Charlie thought of the other
conversations she'd had here, with Oliver, before her
opinion of him had plummeted. Now, the person she
most wanted to be with, the person she had longed to
see, was beside her and she couldn't think of anything
to say. The weight of their shared loss was heavy
between them.

Then Sean said, 'I wanted to see Kathy today, as well
as you.'

'Oh?'

He nodded. 'So it was lucky I found her on her own,
and more approachable than usual.'

'What happened?'

Charlie stared at him, thinking:
Surely
he and Mum
aren't getting together again, after he's tried so hard;
not
now
.

'We talked,' Sean said. 'Properly, for the first time in
ages. I told her that – I'm not going to keep pestering
her any more. It's over. It's taken me a long time to
realize, but at last I do.'

'Oh.'

Sean was sitting forward on the bench; he examined
the splayed fingers of one hand. 'She's done better
than me, in a way. She's – well, not accepted it, that's
not the right word – but she's found ways to be
positive. To make a new, different life. Sorting herself
out, starting the gardening business – even meeting
this Dietmar guy. It's not easy for her. And it's not fair
if I keep trying to drag her back.'

'Don't make it sound as if you've done something
wrong!'

'I don't know. Perhaps. But,' he said, looking at her,
'the one thing that's made it bearable is knowing she's
got you. Otherwise I'd have been desperately worried
about her. You've been fantastic.'

Charlie closed her eyes.
Please
don't tell me I'm
mature and sensible, she thought: she felt anything
but. With her eyes shut she felt quite dizzy. When she
opened them, the rose garden reeled, like a roundabout
coming to a standstill.

'Are you all right?' Sean asked.

No. Seasick.

'Course,' she said. 'But what about you?'

'How d'you mean?'
'You said Mum's done better than you. Sorting herself
out. What about you?'

Sean shrugged, examining his fingers again. 'I'll be
OK. I've got a job, somewhere to live, friends. Things
to do.'

Charlie had a brief, silent struggle with herself. She
couldn't bear to think of Sean dejected and lonely,
living by himself in his flat; he deserved better. He
ought to have someone to love him.

But she wasn't that person.

Disappointment and loss tugged at her, weighed
heavy. It was no use fantasizing.

Sean would meet someone else, as her mother had
always said. Someone his own age. Someone who was
ready to have a baby. Charlie felt a surge of jealousy
towards this unknown future person. But she saw that
if she really loved Sean, she should be generous
enough to hope that this person would turn up. Soon.

'Anyway,' Sean said. He sat back against the bench
and stretched his arms above his head, as if pushing
away negative thoughts. 'When I get back from Turkey
we'll have another day in the Peak District, shall we? I
thought next time we might—'

People coming. Loud voices: 'I mean it's perfectly
obvious to me that Daphne would never dream of
gossiping about such a thing, whatever Sheila may
have imagined Megan meant . . .' Two women in
flowered dresses, absorbed in their conversation,
walked slowly into the courtyard from the archway
opposite, not even noticing Charlie and Sean.

'Oh, look at the
time
,' Charlie said. The morning
sessions must be over, the guests released for their pre-lunch
wanderings and chat. 'I'm meant to be laying
the tables. Jon will have a fit.'

'I ought to be going, too,' Sean said. 'I've got
a bag of smelly clothes to take to the launderette.'

'And yes, about the Peak District,' Charlie said.
'Definitely. Please.'

She went with him to the front gate. Jon would be
getting indignant in the kitchen, but instead of hurrying
back she stood and watched Sean getting smaller
and smaller as he walked away, about to disappear into
three weeks of absence. Her eyes blurred as he
reached the bend into the village and turned to wave.