Splintered Memory (37 page)

***

“You said twenty minutes. Where the hell have you been?” Rich asked Matt and Charlie as he let them back in.

“Is everyone still here
?” Matt asked, and Rich nodded. He walked past Rich and went into the living room, once again all but pulling Charlie along behind him.

“We’ve got an announcement
,” Matt said.

“Claire’s already killed your moment
,” Nick said.

Matt looked angrily at Claire, and she
said; “they all wanted to know why you couldn’t wait till you got home. So I let the cat out of the bag, and told them that you were getting
remarried
.”

“Oh
,” Charlie said exchanging a look with Matt.

“Yeah
,” Matt said nonchalantly; “that’s true, but most of you knew that already. We have much newer news than that though.”

Everyone looked at him expectantly, but he waited for a few seconds before he finally announced; “Charlie’s having my baby.”

“Congratulations,” everyone said in unison before getting up to give Charlie a hug and to shake his hand.

“You’re a lucky bastard
,” Rich said to him quietly.

“I know
,” Matt said to his best friend.

“He won’t be as handsome as if I was the daddy
,” Rich said to Charlie. He then hugged her and kissed her a little too closely to the lips for Matt’s liking. He also noticed Bex look as well.

“Who say’s the baby’s a he
?” Charlie said putting her hands on her currently flat stomach.

“God help us if it’s a little girl
,” Ben said. “If she’s anything like you, she’ll have Matt in an early grave. He won’t be able to cope with all of her potential suitors!”

Charlie smiled, and Matt stood behind her and put his arms
around her and his hands over hers which were still on her stomach. “I’ll just ground her from the age of twelve,” he said.

“Or you can just hope for a boy,
” Rich said; “and then cross your fingers that he doesn’t inherit your drug addiction!” The whole room went silent. That was until Matt burst out laughing, which seemed to make everyone else feel free to laugh at the comment as well.

The excitement and chatter went on long into the night, and Matt felt immensely proud and lucky to have Charlie back in his life again.

“I have a question,” Adam said when everyone except Charlie was a little on the drunk side.”It’s all a little incestuous this group isn’t it? You all grew together. You’ve all dated, kissed, and slept with one another. So what I want to know is, are there any of you that haven’t dated, kissed, or whatever with any of the others?” 

“I’m out
,” Charlie said laughing; “well, assuming that I can discount the girls of course?”

Adam nodded
, and smiled appreciatively at her comment.

Charlie laughed again and said; “okay, then I’m definitely out. A kiss during spin the bottle with Ben, and Nick
once stuck his tongue down my throat when we were at the cinema. But before he even tries to claim that it was a date,” she added looking straight at Nick who was looking very guilty; “it wasn’t! Sorry Mel,” she said to a giggling Mel; “he’s genuinely lovely. Er where was I,” she continued as Adam started laughing. “I dated and slept with Rich, and I’m married and pregnant with Matt. Oh and not to be forgotten I suppose, I once snogged Claire for a bet.”

Everyone looked at her, and Claire
who was now laughing said; “Shit I’d forgotten about that!”

“I hadn’t
,” Matt and Rich said in unison. But only Rich was looking amused.

Charlie stroked Matt’s face
and kissed his cheek, yet he simply shook his head at her.

“When was this trip to the cinema
?” Matt asked Nick.

“
Oh mate it was pre-Rich,” he said. To which everyone started to laugh as Matt once again shook his head, but this time at Nick rather than at Charlie.

“I’m also out
,” Bex said. “Spin the bottle with Matt and Nick, dated Ben, and married to Rich.”

“I’m out as well
,” Nick announced. “Spin the bottle kisses with Rach and Bex, and I copped a cheeky feel of Charlie along with the whole tongue incident at the cinema until she hit me. Sorry Matt. Oh, and I lived with Claire obviously.”

Again everyone started laughing,
but more at Matt who was looking unimpressed with Nick.

“I’m also out
,” Ben said. “Spin the bottle with Charlie and Claire in the same night, every boy’s fantasy! Sorry Adam, sorry Matt. Dated Bex, and now married to the lovely Rach.”

“I’m in
,” Rach said proudly. “Spin the bottle with Nick and Matt, and I’m married to Ben, but I’ve never done anything with Rich thank god. Sorry Bex.”

“I’m in
,” Rich said. But he sounded disconcerted. “Who’d have thought it? Charlie and Bex we all know about, nothing with Rach or Claire though. God, what have I been doing with my time?”

“So Claire, you must be in too
?” Bex asked, and Claire nodded.

“And Matt must be in as well
?” Mel asked, and Matt nodded.

“You fucking liar!” Rich said laughing. “Seriously play the game fair and answer honestly.”

“I’m out,” Matt said making everyone laugh. “Spin the bottle with Bex and Rach, married and have impregnated Charlie, and... kissed Claire a few times.”

“Kissed Claire a few times? That’s what you’re going with
?” Rich asked.

Claire and Matt exchanged a
n awkward look, before looking across at Charlie who returned their looks innocently.

“Did you two have at it in school
?” Ben asked sounding shocked.

“Let’s just say they visited some bases
,” Charlie said serenely. “Although I always wondered how they found the time, you know in between all of their arguing that is.”

Matt was stunned by what Charlie had just said
. He’d had no idea that she’d known, and it looked like Claire hadn’t either.

“How do you know that?” Claire asked Charlie.

“Hmm, you two are both pretty clever and both claim to know me better than the other. Yet neither of you can piece this together?” Charlie asked them before laughing.

Matt looked
at Charlie and asked; “you’ve always known?”

Charlie exchanged a look with Rich
, and then nodded.

“We walked in on you in a pretty compromising situation mate
,” Rich said smirking. “Not something I’d want to see again,” he added pulling a face at Charlie who laughed again.

Matt was feeling mortified and he saw that Claire was blushing. Yet the moment was made even more horrifying and cringe-worthy for them both, when Rich made a
lewd gesture to the room to show exactly what they’d been doing when he and Charlie had walked in on them.

“Note no unimpressed look on my face,” Nick said laughing.

“Nor mine,” Adam said laughing; “but you really are incestuous, you get that right?”

“
Yeah, and it gets worse if you include our older brothers in this!” Claire said smirking at the girls. To which all the boys looked at her, and Rach, Bex, and Charlie all burst out laughing.

It
hadn’t been an easy couple of months for her since she’d moved out of Matt’s home. The initial feelings of indignation, and impromptu I’m too good for him platitudes, had quickly dissipated and her life had returned to what it had been like when she’d first moved to Birmingham. It was lonely again.

Emily
spent her days and nights, if not on call or at work, alone in her flat. She had no friends, and the nurses at the hospital – that had on occasion asked her to join them for drinks, no longer seemed to bother now that it was common knowledge that she was no longer with Dr Grayson.

She missed Matt more than she wanted to admit to herself
. She missed his company. She missed their conversations about patients and about the hospital, and more generally she missed just having someone to come home to and be able to share her day with.

Emily dwelled upon the memories of the times
that they had spent together. She thought about them making love, the way that she would watch him sleep, and the way that he would pull her close in the night. The pain of no longer being with him sometimes felt like it would cripple her.

Each day
after the breakup had been a milestone for her; the first day that she’d spoken to him, the first time that she’d spoken to him without it being intensely awkward, the first time that she’d been able to have a conversation with him without having to fight the urge to beg him to take her back, and the first time that she’d been able to go to bed following an encounter with him and not cry herself to sleep.

A
fter more than two months of being apart from him, her heartache had seemed to be getting better. Yet as she lay on her sofa in a ball with tears pouring from her eyes, trying desperately to shut out of her mind the image of absolute joy on Matt’s face as he’d kissed Charlie’s stomach, she felt like her heart was back on fire.

She
tried to alter the picture in her head, and she tried to visualise Matt kissing her stomach instead of Charlie’s as they looked at an ultrasound of their baby. Yet as the image of their happiness burned in her mind again it felt like a blow to the face, and at the same time there was a knock at the door. 

Emily ignored it and wiped her face with a tissue. There was a knock again, but she turned on her television and continued to ignore the knocking despite the fact that it was getting louder. After ten minutes of continual knocking though, she couldn’t ignore it any longer and she got up to answer it.

She was surprised, and angry, to find that it was Charlie who had been knocking on her door. She was stood there in front of Emily holding a bottle of wine and a big bunch of flowers.

“Hi
,” she said. “Don’t happen to know a doctor do you? I’ve been banging on this door for so long that I think I’ve broken a bone in my hand.”

“What do you want
?” Emily asked coldly, refusing to allow herself to be taken in by Charlie’s kindness and her pretty smiling face and innocent eyes.

“Can I come in?” Charlie asked lightly.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Emily said.

“Oh, okay
,” Charlie said sounding a little taken aback. “I’m just going to leave these with you then,” Charlie said passing the bottle of wine and the flowers to Emily.

“I don’t want them
,” Emily said passing them straight back.

“Okay. I’m just going to leave them here then
,” Charlie said putting them down on the floor in the hallway. “The flowers will die, but I’m sure one of your neighbours will take the wine.”

Emily shut the door and went back to her sofa.

How obnoxious she thought. She couldn’t believe that Charlie was stupid enough to think that she could just come round here and expect her to be polite to her. She was the reason why she was alone and unhappy. It was Charlie’s fault that Matt couldn’t be happy with her, and hadn’t been able to love her. How dare she come round here as though nothing had happened she thought angrily.

***

In the days that followed, Charlie’s persistence amazed Emily. She came to the flat every night that Emily was in, and left notes for her when she wasn’t. Given the number of times that Charlie had supposed rightly that she was in, she’d started to suspect that Nurse Willis was giving Charlie information about her shifts.

She
had obstinately refused to talk to Charlie. She hadn’t let her in, and most times she hadn’t even acknowledged that she was at the door. Yet each time Charlie came, she brought Emily something. If it wasn’t wine and flowers, then it was chocolates and sweets.

After t
wo weeks of visits, Charlie stepped it up a gear and started bringing her fresh groceries. She no longer bothered to knock, she simply left them by her door and slipped a note underneath so Emily would know that she’d been and there was food outside for her.

Finally
one Friday night, when she was sat watching television, she saw the familiar handwritten note being pushed under her door. Exasperatedly she walked over to the door and opened it.

“
What do you want from me?” She demanded from Charlie.

“I want to talk to you
,” Charlie said.

“Just talk. Not to be friends again
?” She asked suspiciously.

“I would actually like to be friends
again, but I’ll accept just a single conversation if that’s all that’s on offer. Look if you talk to me, then I promise I’ll stop coming round here,” Charlie said with a little smile. She even drew an invisible cross over her heart with her finger.

“Fine
,” she said too exhausted to argue and she held the door open for Charlie to come in.