Charlie (37 page)

It was the first time Anne had said anything sharp about Meg. Charlie had noticed that she wasn’t always quite in tune with her, but she’d assumed it was just because she was plainer and less extrovert.

Charlie sat down on her bed, wishing she hadn’t asked Meg to speak to Anne about leaving her alone in the bedroom tonight. There was nothing for it but to broach the subject herself and apologize.

Anne laughed when she’d finished. ‘You don’t need to apologize, I don’t mind. I’m not coming home tonight anyway. The party’s by my mum’s so I’ll stay there. Anytime you want a bit of privacy just tip us the wink and I’ll be off. Just you be careful with Meg, love, she’s a typical Scorpio with a sting in her tail. She’s a good laugh, nice as ninepence most of the time, but where men are concerned she’s dangerous.’

‘What do I do if she starts talking like that again?’ Charlie asked nervously. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘I usually make up an excuse and walk away,’ Anne said, turning to the mirror and taking out her rollers. ‘The trouble is, you are a very different kettle of fish to me. You’re very pretty, with an even better figure than Meg’s, so she’s a bit jealous, but what really bugs her is that she can’t get into your head.’

‘What do you mean, “She can’t get into my head”?’

‘That’s what she does with everyone, whether it’s with her astrology, reading auras or just embarrassing them with awkward questions until she finds their weak spot.’

‘But why does she want to find that?’ Charlie was baffled.

‘Because it gives her a feeling of power over you. I’m a much better artist than she is, but I’m plain, so she can bring me down easily with remarks about my appearance. Beth’s weak spot is that she’s got no tits and terrible legs. You may have noticed she always wears trousers. I can’t count the number of times Meg’s dropped that into a conversation just because Beth has been getting more attention than her.’

‘She must be very insecure herself,’ Charlie said.

‘She is. Her parents split up when she was eleven and I don’t think either of them really wanted to have custody of her. She used to go from one to the other, like a yo-yo. Now they both give her money all the time so she’ll stay away. She isn’t very talented, all she’s got is her sex appeal. She devours men but she can’t keep any of them.’

‘Do you like living here?’ Charlie asked, suddenly realizing there was more to this conversation than a mere passing on of advice.

Anne turned back from the mirror, her long hair in fat curls from the rollers. ‘I like it better now you are here,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was afraid Meg would pick someone for this room who is as impossible as she is. I’ve stayed this long because it’s cheap and handy for college, but I don’t like myself much for turning into almost as big a slag as Meg is.’

‘You don’t have to sleep with men just because she does,’ Charlie said softly. She liked Anne and she was flattered that the girl appeared to trust her.

‘I know,’ Anne sighed deeply. ‘But she put me under a lot of pressure when I first moved in. Would you believe I was a virgin then?’

‘Were you?’ Charlie was surprised.

‘I suppose I did it the first time just to appear cool,’ Anne admitted. ‘I wanted to be like Meg then, I thought she was very sophisticated. To be honest I don’t even like sex much. I’d rather curl up with a good book. But you don’t get much chance for that here.’

They were interrupted by Beth crashing in, wanting to borrow some hair spray. She was dressed in a skin-tight silver cat suit with flares a yard wide, and silver glitter on her cheeks. As always she looked sensational.

‘Come on out with us?’ she said to Charlie, dropping her head to the floor and spraying on the lacquer from an upside-down position. ‘There’s a party up at Muswell Hill, it’s going to be wild.’

When she stood up her blonde hair was standing up on end; with the silver suit she looked like an alien from outer space. Charlie felt envious, this girl always seemed to have her finger right on the pulse of London.

‘Andrew’s coming round later,’ she said. ‘So I can’t.’

‘Come with him later,’ Beth suggested. ‘We’ll leave the address. It’s going to be a gas.’

‘It will be for her, looking like that!’ Anne said once Beth had rushed out again.

It was after ten before the three girls left the flat. Charlie tidied up, had a bath, put on the pink dress she’d bought when she met Guy and sat down by the open window in the living room to paint her nails. Hazelmere Road was at the highest point in Hornsey. The big trees in the road below grew to the level of the window-sill, and looking out she got a sense of being in a tree-house. It was dusk now, and she could see all the way across rooftops to Alexander Palace. As she sat there, street lights were switching on, and once it was completely dark it became a magical view, like looking at millions of candles in a distant shrine.

Charlie was glad to be alone. Several times in the past three weeks when she became irritated by the other girls borrowing her things without asking, or not cleaning up after themselves, she’d wondered if she was really cut out for flat-sharing.

Was that because she was basically selfish and liked everything her own way, or was it through being an only child? Yet she liked the idea of sharing with Andrew. They laughed about the same things, they had so much to talk about, everything was fun with him. Would it stay like that if they were together permanently?

She was absolutely certain she was in love with him. Her heart leapt every time she saw him, she thought about him almost every minute of the day. Time with him was always too short, but then she reminded herself she’d once felt that way about Guy too.

‘You can’t compare Andrew with him,’ she told herself. ‘You were only sixteen when you met him and you fell in love with the idea of escape. You really know Andrew, he’s proved himself.’

Soon after twelve she heard the sound of his scooter coming along the road. Dropping the book she’d been reading, she ran downstairs to answer the door. The house was unusually quiet tonight, the nurses downstairs often had parties on Saturdays, but perhaps they were on duty tonight.

Andrew greeted her with a warm hug. His dark hair was windswept and he smelled deliciously of fresh air. ‘I thought this evening would never end,’ he said as they went back upstairs together. ‘We had a crowd of Hooray Henrys in on a stag night. They poured beer over one another, threw up in the bog, shouted and bawled at one another. I hated every last one of them.’

Charlie laughed. She had watched him behind the bar many times. He managed to stay charming no matter how rude people were to him. It was no wonder Carol, the landlady, thought a lot of him.

‘Who had to clear up the bog?’

‘Thankfully, not me this time,’ Andrew smiled. ‘If I’d had to, I might have got one of those chaps and used him as a mop.’

Charlie put her Pink Floyd album on and got him a beer from the fridge. ‘Would you like something to eat too?’ she asked. ‘I could rustle up a bacon sandwich.’

‘All I want to eat is you,’ he said, stretching out on one of the mattresses. ‘How long have we got before the others get back?’

‘I expect it will be hours yet,’ she grinned. ‘Anne’s away for the night too. And look what I’ve got!’ She held up the two joints Meg had rolled.

‘Funny cigarettes I do declare,’ he said. ‘Since when did you indulge in such things?’ He had often smoked cannabis at parties – his attitude to drugs was a mixture of curiosity and a touch of devilment because it was illegal.

‘Only since tonight,’ Charlie laughed, and sitting down beside him told him what had gone on between herself and Meg.

‘You didn’t tell her anything about us, did you?’ He didn’t really like Meg and he certainly didn’t want her knowing anything personal about him.

‘Nothing more than admitting we’d made love this afternoon,’ she said. ‘In view of what Anne said later I wish I hadn’t even told her that.’

‘She makes me feel uneasy,’ he said, looking a bit sheepish. ‘A couple of times when you’ve been out of the room she’s asked me very rude questions. I don’t like the fact she hasn’t got a job either, it makes me wonder where she gets all her money.’

Charlie hadn’t ever given this much thought before. Anne was doing temporary clerical work for an agency during the college holidays, Beth worked as a waitress most lunchtimes, but she had no idea how Meg filled her days. ‘Anne said both her parents give her money,’ she said.

Andrew just shrugged, Charlie wondered if he suspected Meg was up to something, but when she asked him he couldn’t be drawn.

Later on Charlie thought Meg had a point about cannabis making sex extra special. They had smoked the two joints while listening to some music, and all at once she found herself totally relaxed, yet all her senses sharpened. Each kiss, each touch felt so slow and sensual, blending with the music. Her body moulded into Andrew’s as if they were one person and she was transported away to another sphere where everything seemed liquid and dreamy. Even the living room looked beautiful, the red and pink scarves over the light cast soft shadows on to the ceiling and walls, the big plants creating a jungle effect.

Lost in the rapture of pleasing one another, they forgot that someone could come bursting through the door at any minute. It was only afterwards, trembling with spent passion and cold beneath the open window, that they were reminded other people lived here too.

‘You’ve got the most perfect body,’ Andrew said as he stood up and bent over her on the mattress to carry her to bed. ‘It’s golden all over, like you were sprinkled with gold dust at birth. I love you so much I can hardly bear it.’

He carried her effortlessly as if she weighed no more than a bag of shopping and after tucking her into bed he stood looking down at her for a moment.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, holding up her arms to him.

‘Trying to engrave you on my mind forever,’ he said, bending to kiss her. ‘So when you’re old, wrinkled and fat, I’ll still have this moment in my head.’

‘I won’t get fat,’ she said indignantly. ‘Maybe old and wrinkled, but not fat. And don’t you get any ideas about growing fat either. I like you just the way you are.’

She thought he looked beautiful naked. Enough muscle in his shoulders and arms to look manly, but his tousled dark hair, the softness of his mouth and the adoring expression in his clear blue eyes were boyish and innocent.

‘I want to marry you,’ he said, kneeling down beside the bed and leaning his chin on her breast. ‘I think I knew the day I met you that we were meant for one another. Now I know for certain.’

‘Do you now?’ she laughed. ‘Well, get into bed and cuddle me.’

The speed he leapt in with made her laugh. ‘Can I take that as acceptance?’ he asked.

‘No. You didn’t ask me properly,’ she replied snuggling into his shoulder. ‘Besides, you’ve got your degree before we can talk about such serious things.’

‘I suppose so,’ he sighed. ‘But that’s not so long, only a year away.’

‘A great deal can happen in a year,’ she said sleepily. ‘You might get bored with me, or meet someone else.’

‘Never,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘I’m the constant type.’

They were awakened from a deep sleep by Meg and Beth crashing into the flat and it sounded as if they had a dozen people with them.

Andrew sat up and looked at his watch. ‘God, it’s four in the morning! Do they normally make so much noise at night?’

Charlie grunted that it was quite common and pulled him down beside her again. But there was no chance of going back to sleep, someone switched on the stereo and suddenly the whole flat began to vibrate with the sound of David Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’.

‘Don’t the people downstairs complain?’ Andrew whispered.

‘All the time,’ Charlie said. ‘Meg just laughs at them and calls them old fogies. But you must have been just as noisy in your flat?’

‘Not at this time of the morning,’ he said. ‘It sounds as if they’ve got a complete rugby team with them.’

‘They probably have,’ Charlie sighed. She couldn’t hear any female voices aside from Meg and Beth. ‘Let’s just hope they don’t come bursting in here!’

As they lay there, the impromptu party got rowdier. Bellows of male laughter, shrieks from Beth and Meg, clinking of bottles, a shattered glass on the kitchen floor and people stumbling drunkenly into furniture. Charlie was embarrassed more than really angry, she sensed Andrew was thinking that if he hadn’t been with her, the other girls might have dragged her out of bed to join in.

Suddenly their door burst open and a big man was illuminated in the doorway. ‘Where’s the little Chink then?’ he shouted. ‘Come out, Chinky, wherever you are!’

Andrew leapt out of bed before Charlie could even think what to do. ‘Clear off,’ he said in a loud, clear voice – he didn’t seem worried that he was naked. ‘People are trying to sleep in here.’

‘Doesn’t look like sleeping to me,’ the man replied slurring his words drunkenly. ‘Bin shagging the Chink, have you?’

Charlie’s heart nearly stopped with fright, afraid that Andrew would punch the man and then the others would set about him. Quickly pulling her nightdress from beneath the pillow she slipped it over her head. But before she could get out of bed, Andrew was already poking the man in the chest and threatening him.

‘Come another step inside this door and I’ll knock you out,’ he said.

Charlie leapt out of bed and pushed herself between Andrew and the man. Andrew might have a commanding manner, she’d seen it when he showed drunks the door at the pub, but he was no match for this gorilla.

‘Meg!’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Get this friend of yours out of here immediately.’

There were five men altogether, including the one in her doorway, all big burly types in their late twenties with close-cropped hair. A couple of them she recognized from her night in The Fox. They were the type Meg referred to as ‘the Suits’ and therefore far more dangerous than a group of hippie art students.

It was a horrible, terrifying moment. Andrew was trying to push past her, the man in front of her was staring at her lecherously. The rest of the group had got to their feet, their tough-looking faces menacing.