Strangers (15 page)

He was irritable and bad-tempered.
Sometimes he was mean to her, downright unpleasant.
But he always apologized, always wanted to make things right again.
When he was wild, she calmed him.
When he cried, she held him.
When he wanted to talk, she listened.
When he wanted silence, she didn’t speak.
And Charlie came to realize that he didn’t want the cigarettes or booze or coke anymore.
He only wanted Kate.

Kate thought she knew what was happening to Charlie.
Something bad inside him was worming its way out.
She watched his mood swing from affectionate to vicious, from tearful to manic, and handled him the best way she could.
He needed her so much, she had no time to think about what had happened to her.
Richard didn’t matter.
Charlie did.
Charlie’s need for her saved her.
When he couldn’t stop shaking, she held him.
When all he seemed able to do was pace around the apartment, dragging her with him, she thought up ways to distract him.

“Take a seat, sir.
The show will begin in two minutes,” Kate said.
She sat him on the couch, gave him a pad of paper and a pen.
“Marks out of ten,” she said.

Then she modeled her underwear—cotton, lace and leather and Charlie’s boxers—until he forgot to write anything down, forgot why she’d started in the first place.

When they did start to sleep for longer periods, nightmares plagued them both.
Sometimes Charlie woke her, his face etched in fear, hers bathed in sweat.
Other times, she pulled him away from whatever demon had grabbed him.
They had their own torments and they held each other, resorting to humor to defuse their anxiety or sex to forget it.
Their conversations were rambling outpourings of hopes, dreams and fears.
But even as Kate teetered on the brink of revealing too much, she kept her deepest secrets while Charlie revealed all of his.
And when she was tempted to tell him everything, she used sex to distract herself.

They lay exhausted in a tangle of arms and legs and Kate knew this was the closest she’d ever been to any person.

“I’m scared I’ve exchanged one addiction for another,” he murmured, running his hands over her skin.

Kate knew he had, because she was addicted to him, to the sight and sound of him, the touch and smell of him, his soft brown eyes that changed with his moods, his sexy smile and that place behind his ear that sent him wild when she licked it.

As each day went by, she watched the gradual lifting of the dark circles under his eyes.
His appetite improved, though he seemed to survive on virtually no sleep.
She ached from all the sex, but it stopped her from thinking.
Kate knew she’d undergone a detox of her own, not physical, but mental, purging guilt and sorrow from her system.
Her thinking became clearer.
What happened with Richard wasn’t her fault.
Charlie made her believe in herself.

And all the time, as they came back to life, the day drew closer when they’d have to face the outside world.
They both knew it but in all they talked about, neither of them talked about that.

They lay facedown on the bed, staring at each other.

“What are you thinking?” Charlie asked.

He asked that at least five times a day and Kate never rolled her eyes.
She always gave him an answer.

“We’re running out of food,” she said.

“Then there’s no choice.
I’ll have to eat you.
I’ve decided to start with your backside, sautéed in a knob of butter.” His fingers feathered down her spine until his hand rested on her bottom.

“I thought you were going to save the best until last?
Anyway, we’ve run out of butter.
I have to go shopping.”

Charlie’s heart ached with the thought that he might not have her with him forever.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her.

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” he whispered.

He looked her straight in the eyes and willed her to understand how important that was to him.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“Am I your best friend too?”

“You’re up there with Edward.”

He stiffened.
“Who the hell is Edward?”

“According to my psychologist, he was a coping mechanism that helped me deal with deep-seated unhappiness.
Although I think he wanted to transfer me to the psychiatrist when he realized I’d chosen Edward Scissorhands as my imaginary friend.”

Charlie laughed and relaxed again.

“Didn’t you have any real friends when you were a kid?” He traced his finger over her cheek.

“Sometimes I thought I did, but the answer is no.”

Kate ran her hands up his back and he took a deep breath.
Every time she touched him, it was like the magic first time and ripples of pleasure trickled through every limb.

“Didn’t you want friends?” he asked.

“One would have been enough.
I thought having a friend would be the answer to everything.
But the kids I knew always let me down.
They lied about me or told my secrets.
They were never there when it mattered, so in the end I stopped thinking friends would make my life better.
If I didn’t have any, then they couldn’t hurt me.
That was the theory.
In practice, everyone thought I was a stuck-up bitch and found other ways to get at me.”

Charlie held her a little tighter, kissed her forehead.
“I wish I’d been there.”

“Don’t worry, Charlie.
I’m all grown up now.
I don’t get bent out of shape if Rachel nicks my doll or Lucy flushes my book.”

“I wish I’d been a better brother to Michael.
I ignored him at school.
We boarded and I was supposed to look out for him, but didn’t.
Much too busy being Mr.
Popular to worry about a homesick little boy.
I was captain of the football team, played tennis for the county, fenced for the country and even managed to fashion three guitar players and an average drummer into a half-decent band.
I didn’t have time for my brother.”

“What happened to your band when you left school?”

“Dissolved like snow falling in springtime.
I started another at university, though.
I put an advert on the union notice board and made people audition.
God, I was cocky.”

Kate coughed and he laughed.

“All right, I’m still cocky.
But if they were crap, I told them so.
The new band wasn’t bad.
I wrote all our stuff and one night when we were performing, someone who mattered in the music world was in the audience.
Much to my parents’ disappointment, all thoughts of doing a proper job flew straight through the window.
Michael was the one supposed to make their dreams come true.” Charlie heard the catch in his voice so he knew Kate had.

“Who’s going shopping?” she asked.

Grateful she changed the subject, he slipped a hand between her legs.
“Do we have to?”

“Three cheese biscuits left and I’m not sharing,” Kate said.
“We could both go.
I’ll hold your hand so you don’t get lost.”

“I don’t want to go out in case someone recognizes me.
You go.
And bring a couple of newspapers.
Not the decent ones.”

When Kate returned, Charlie was asleep, sprawled naked on the floor next to the jigsaw puzzle, his hair mussed and his long lean body stretched over the cushions like an indolent big cat.
Kate felt a rush of affection.
The jigsaw was half complete.
In between bouts of frantic lovemaking, they’d worked on it together, made up silly rewards for the first one to position five pieces.
A kiss on the belly button.
For ten pieces a kiss somewhere more intimate.
Charlie always cheated and Kate sometimes let him.

Feeling sorry for each other had stopped them feeling sorry for themselves.
He’d opened his heart to her, and Kate felt bad she hadn’t done the same to him, not completely.
It still seemed unreal.
Every time she looked at him, she couldn’t quite believe it.
He was the best thing that had ever happened to her, but she knew it couldn’t last.
He was a star and she was space debris.

Kate crept to his side with a bottle of Stopit, a vile tasting liquid for painting on nails, to stop kids biting them down to the quick.
Holding the miniature nylon brush between her thumb and forefinger, she coated each of his stubby fingernails.

By the time she’d put the food away and had cooked them their first normal meal for days, Charlie was waking up.
He stretched like a cat too, arms and legs extended, and then turned to look for her.

“India’s okay,” he said.

Kate smiled.

“I looked on the internet.
She’s awake and…thank God.
What can I smell?” he asked.

“Food.”

He scampered to her side, running his fingers through his spiky hair.

“It’s not fair,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“You’ve got clothes on and I haven’t.”

“You know where your clothes are,” she said.

“Okay, I’m going to put them on and it will serve you right.”

Kate laughed as he stamped out of the room.
A moment later, he was shouting her.
“Kate!
Get in here.
Right now!”

When she went into the bedroom, she couldn’t see him for a moment and as she registered he’d hidden behind the door, he jumped forward and propelled her onto the bed, spinning her over, pinning her on her back.
He sat on her thighs and Kate groaned.

“That hurts,” she said.

“So does this.”

Charlie stuck his finger in her mouth and ran his nail over her tongue.
Kate gagged, grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away.

“What have you done, you witch?” he hissed.
“I was all set to have a comforting nibble since your boobs weren’t available and I thought I must have stuck my fingers in poison.”

“It’s to stop you biting your nails.” Kate struggled to get free.

Charlie frowned and reached toward her mouth with his fingers.

“If you do that again, I’ll paint my nipples with it,” Kate said.

He grinned.
“You wouldn’t dare.
You like me licking those.” He pulled a face again.
“Take it off.”

“It’s for your own good,” Kate said.

“But my mouth tastes terrible.”

“Don’t bite your nails then.”

“I don’t like you anymore.”

“So you don’t want what I’ve cooked?”

“Maybe I do like you.
What are we having?”

“Tripe and onions.”

Charlie held his fingers over her lips.
“Try again.”

“Enchiladas.”

He rolled off her.

“And I bought something to drink,” Kate said.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed alcohol.”

“It’s for me.”

“We have to share.
It’s only fair.”

“With rhymes like that it’s no wonder you gave up writing songs.” Kate avoided the hand heading for her backside and went back to the kitchen.

Charlie pulled on the sleep pants.
He thought he’d stopped writing songs, but he’d written one in his head about Kate’s eyes.
The fear in them when she was in the sea, how they lit up when she teased him, their feline quality when she lay beneath him, their wildness when he made her come.

After they’d eaten, Charlie flicked through the newspapers.
He didn’t see his name mentioned once and the Internet search he’d done while Kate was out hadn’t thrown up anything significant about him over the last week.
Except India Westerby was okay.
Two miracles.

“I need to ring my agent,” he said.

“I thought he’d dumped you.”

“He might not have meant it.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to ring him, but I should.”

“You’ve grown up, then.” Kate pulled her legs onto the couch.
“Doing things you know you should, rather than what you want.”

“What about you?
When did you grow up?” He dropped his arm across her shoulders.

“A long time ago, once I’d accepted there wasn’t someone out there desperate to give a little girl a home.”

Charlie’s heart hurt for her.
“I bet you were really sweet.
Shame what you’ve grown into.
Get your photo album and let’s see what you were like when you were younger.”

There was a pause before she spoke.
“I don’t have any photos.”

Charlie was taken aback.
“What?
None?
Not even of your mum and dad?”

“No.
I don’t like photographs.”

Kate kept her eyes down and a few days ago, Charlie might have left it, but now he wanted to know everything.
“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Tell me why.”

Charlie could almost see the cogs and wheels turning in her head as she wondered whether to lie.

“After I ran away from a foster home for the third time, I got sent to a residential care center in Berkshire—this huge place housing twenty-five kids.
I was given a big room in the attic with its own bathroom and that started me off on the wrong foot with the others.
I thought I was being kept away from them because the staff had me down as a bad influence.
They did, but that wasn’t the reason.”

Charlie pulled her feet on to his lap and massaged them.

“I meant to be different.
I planned to work hard at school, pass exams, try to get on with everyone, but…”

Charlie sensed she’d changed her mind.
She wouldn’t tell him the truth.

“I fell out with one of the girls.
She was telling lies about me at school, so I cut her hair while she was asleep.
In revenge, she ripped up all my photographs.”

“Remind me not to piss you off,” he said.
“Christ, with your upbringing, I’m surprised you aren’t a misogynistic lesbian.”

“I was, but you’ve fucked me up, Charlie.”

“Yeah, I suppose I have.” He laughed.
“But you can hardly claim it was one-sided.”

“No, I think I remember upside down and backward as well.”

“Will you put on your leather underwear and sit on my lap while I phone Ethan?” he asked.

“Why?”

“So I know I’ll get a reward when I’ve spoken to him.”

“No, I’ll distract you.
Do it now.
You’ll have to plug the phone back in.”

Charlie had no idea how Ethan would react.
He’d said they were finished, but he was the only guy Charlie had ever trusted to handle his interests.
Ethan had been his agent, business manager, personal assistant and publicist for a long time and Charlie didn’t want to begin again with someone else.