Chasing Charlie (26 page)

MARA

I dragged my heavy feet up the stairs. It was late for a weekday, well after nine o'clock. It upset my equilibrium a little getting home this late. I always felt anxious in advance of the next day, knowing I would wake tired, heavy and possibly blue. As soon as I opened the door, however, the smell of cooking – cooking? – snatched my thoughts away from my worrying and led me up the hall and into the kitchen.

‘Sam?' I found her sitting at the kitchen table.

‘You're late.'

‘You've been cooking!' I said, astonished.

‘Yeah, well . . .' Sam stood up and huffed three steps to the hob and lifted a lid. ‘I don't know what it'll be like now it's been sitting around for so long.'

‘I didn't know I was going to be home so late or that you'd be cooking, sorry.'

Sam grunted and stabbed at the contents of the pot with a wooden spoon. I felt a sudden desire to scream with laughter but squeezed my lips tight to
S
top it. Judging by the set of Sam's shoulders, right now wasn't the best moment to test the girl's sense of humour.

‘I'll be back in a mo, let me just take my coat off.'

What is going on? I thought to myself, as I removed my coat and returned my shoes to their place in the line-up under the bed. Sam must finally be feeling remorseful for her singularly selfish behaviour. I peeled off my tights and felt my legs heave a sigh of relief. Then I hung up my skirt and dropped my tights into the washing basket. Without a doubt, Sam inhabiting the kitchen and doing something other than opening a bottle of wine was a loud and clear expression of her love. I pulled on tracksuit bottoms and slid my feet into slippers. Ah, that's lovely. I stood up, relishing for a moment the feeling of soft wool around my tired feet. Time to put my shoulders back and attempt to eat whatever it was that Sam had gone out of her comfort zone to cook. When my hand touched the doorknob, however, an unwelcome thought crossed my mind. Of course it could be that Sam wasn't sorry at all. It could be that she simply wanted something. My heart sank. I really, really hoped that wasn't the case. Not tonight.

The table was laid Sam-style, which involved a couple of mismatching knives and forks being thrown into the middle of the table. ‘Can I do anything?' I hovered. It had been so long since Sam cooked, I couldn't remember what to do.

‘No, sit down – it'll be ready in a minute. I'm just going to serve it up, is that all right?' Sam answered politely although I wasn't convinced. I could hear that underneath it, Sam was still annoyed about me being so late home. I didn't say anything and sat down obediently, trying very hard not to think cross little thoughts about the shoe being on the other foot.

‘Here you go.' Sam put a plate of what looked like pasta with a tomato-based sauce in front of me.

‘Thanks,' I said, and I meant it. It was nice to be cooked for, regardless of the attitude or the possible food poisoning.

‘You haven't tasted it yet,' Sam said gruffly. She put her own plate down then returned to the kitchen counter to grab a bottle of wine and two glasses.

‘Here.' Sam filled my glass – too deeply for my liking but she was obviously trying hard. ‘To you, Mara.'

‘To me?'

Sam clinked her glass with mine. ‘For being a patient friend!'

‘Cheers, Sam, I appreciate it.' I took a big sip – anything to line the stomach. ‘I know you'll be good for the money when you can.'

‘Money?'

‘That's not what you meant?'

Sam's face drained of colour. ‘What money, you mean the bills?'

‘Well, that and the rent.'

‘The rent? Have I missed a week?'

‘Actually, you've missed three weeks.'

‘Fuck.' Sam wiped her face with her hands in a fed-up sweep. ‘Three weeks? I had no idea.'

I took another sip of wine. ‘What do you mean, then, by being a patient friend?'

‘Oh, you know, this Charlie business. Me running around like an idiot after him, coming in all hours, disappearing for days on end, generally losing my mind.'

‘Oh, Sam, don't worry about that, at least you've stopped now.'

Sam looked at me with a pained expression.

‘What, you haven't stopped?'

Sam sighed. ‘I don't know. I think I might stop chasing his tail, I feel pretty down about it all right now, but . . .' She sighed again, another dramatic sweep of her face. ‘The problem is it will only take one call, one text, one look from him and I'm right back there, panting after him. Putty in his hands.'

‘Is that what happened this weekend? Is he over his heartbreak, ready to jump back in the sack with the next girl in line?'

‘Ouch!'

‘Sorry, that probably sounded a bit harsh.'

Sam sighed.

The meal was cooling in front of me, goading me to take a bite, but it smelt . . . I couldn't put my finger on it . . .

‘You're probably not that far off. I don't know, he was definitely not himself but by Sunday morning he was teasing me again, which is usually a good sign. Oh, I don't know, Mara, I can't seem to let it go.'

I looked at my friend. When was she going to screw her head on again?

‘Sam, you're worth more than that. I've said it before and I'll say it again. He doesn't seem to make you happy, which is the point of loving someone, isn't it?'

Sam nodded reluctantly.

‘Well, forget about him for a moment and let's eat up. This food is getting cold.'

Sam poked the . . . stuff on her plate.

‘I'm not sure it could be worse.'

‘Come on chicken, on the count of three . . . one, two—'

At the same time we shoved in a forkful and reluctantly chewed for a few moments before reaching for our glasses at the same time to wash it down.

‘Oh my God, that's disgusting!' Sam shouted.

‘It's . . . quite weird, Sam, but not disgusting.'

‘It's fucking disgusting!'

‘Just wondering though, why did you put so much cinnamon in?'

‘I didn't.'

‘Are you sure? I'm sure I can taste it. It's an . . . interesting choice.'

Sam went to fetch the jar of spice she'd used and held it out for me to see. ‘This so isn't paprika!'

‘You are such a worry, Moriarty,' I answered, laughing at my silly friend and feeling happier than I had in ages.

SAM

It was two days before I saw Charlie again. Two whole days. Although technically speaking from the time Charlie asked me out for a drink to the moment I said yes, I'd actually only held out for thirty-two minutes. But in my head I was sticking to the two-day gap. I had to hold onto something, some shred of evidence that I wasn't – how did Mara put it – ‘a wet dishcloth, squeezed by Charlie's big hands'. Thanks, Mara, that's really adding to my self-confidence here, I thought. Followed swiftly by: why am I always the first one at the pub, no matter how late I arrive? I chewed the inside of my lip. He'd just better show up, and before I lost my nerve.

And there he was, striding across the room.

‘Sam! So sorry I'm late, had a devil of a meeting, what can I get you?' He leant down to kiss my cheek. His coat shifted as he bent over, releasing a slight puff of man and sandalwood. A killer combination. I mumbled something about it being all right and promptly felt annoyed with myself.

Focus, dammit! I am
not
all right. He is most definitely
not
all right and he doesn't smell good enough to eat. I yawned and eyed the table. I pictured laying my head on it and drifting off, there and then, and escaping the task ahead. Battling with my will was exhausting and not made any easier by this bloody virus hanging around, sapping my energy. Stop making excuses. I steeled myself as Charlie returned with drinks. The last drinks we would be sharing as lovers.

‘You look miserable,' he said, setting the drinks down and slipping in opposite me.

‘Do I? I'm not. Miserable that is. I'm still a bit ill, that's all . . .' I teetered off.

‘Well, you don't have the vim you displayed on Saturday night, that's for sure!' Charlie chuckled.

‘Oh God,' I groaned, ‘please don't remind me.'

‘What do you mean? It was hilarious, hands down the funniest scene I've seen at Dunbourne for years. Ma's mouth was so pursed I wondered for a moment if she'd actually eaten her lips!'

I groaned again, head in hands.

‘But Dad, he loved it, I think. He's never had much time for Ma's airs and graces anyway, and he loves a good set-to. I haven't seen him that animated for ages. I mean, you really didn't hold back, did you?'

‘I don't really remember it, Charlie, and I don't want to.'

‘That's a pity.' Charlie paused for a moment. ‘Actually I think the old man has a real soft spot for you. He could probably have done with a daughter, especially a fiery one like yourself.'

He was right – I knew it. The ride home the next morning was a one-sided conversation conducted entirely by Charles Snr, his eyes flitting up to his rear-view mirror, constantly hopeful of catching my eye while I sat there mute with shame. Meanwhile, next to him in the Jag, Lydia had sat straight as a post, barely saying a thing the whole way. It had all got so out of hand. I couldn't keep embarrassing myself like this. Chasing Charlie was one thing but shaming myself in front of my friends, and now his parents, was something else. I was turning into someone I didn't recognise.

‘Charlie—'

‘The thing is, Sam, I know I've always teased you about your political views.'

‘Charlie, I—'

‘But I've never really understood how explosive you are. You're practically boiling inside, aren't you?'

‘Well, I don't know about that, but—'

‘It's really very, very sexy. And the reason, I think, that I've always been attracted to you. I like your passion, Sam. That's you, a passionate, expressive, brave person—' Charlie held his fingers in the air as if he was holding something important.

‘The way you just rocked up to Dunbourne like that, unannounced—'

‘Actually your dad found me in the pub up the road.'

‘—and brandished your views around the place, not caring a toss what other people thought. It was gorgeous. You're gorgeous. Do you know that?' Charlie reached across and grasped the top of my arms, staring into my face more intensely than he had in perhaps the whole time I'd known him. Then he let go of me suddenly.

‘But I'm being so rude, sorry. You were saying something?'

‘Oh, it was nothing.'

‘No, please. Say what you wanted to say.'

But my will, no stronger than ten-denier tights at the best of times, had fled the room, leaving my legs – and heart – completely bare. And Charlie waded in, boring those earnest eyes into mine and now, oh no, there he goes with the head shot, clutching my thigh under the table. I sighed.

‘Is that a sigh of pleasure?'

‘No. Well, maybe a little. Actually it was one of resignation.'

‘I'm flattered.'

I smiled at him. ‘You really are a smooth bastard, aren't you?' Charlie leant across and kissed me, an insistent, perfect, just-juicy-enough kiss that resulted in an all-too-familiar hot-cold whoosh of hormonal lava, flooding every limb. Then he pulled away, as if kissing like that was a normal occurrence, and asked me, ‘Are you free to come to a gig this weekend?'

I was sure that in that moment I'd follow him across any number of sharp, cutting surfaces to the ends of the earth if necessary. Which, if my memory served me right, was exactly the mentality one had to have to survive one of the ‘gigs' that Charlie liked attending.

‘Who's playing?'

‘Only Coldplay,' Charlie answered, completely chuffed he'd beaten the masses to two tickets. I tried to swallow my disappointment. The masses were the important feature here. Masses and masses of boring, soulless twats who couldn't think for themselves. Well, not musically anyway. Not in my book (I chose to ignore the fact that Claudia and many other people I respected love them too). This was music for consumers. Music for conformers. Some of the most irritating, boring music on the planet.

‘Sounds awesome, I'd love to go!' I said.

ED

From: Ed Minkley

Date: Wednesday, 11 March

To: Covington Green

Subject: Fresh air

Hey,

Sorry, mate, you're right, I've been rubbish lately. Been way too long.

In answer to you questions – job's brilliant, loving it. I can't believe I've already been here for more than a week. You've never been to Scotland, have you? You really have to! It is wild – literally. There's an edginess up here and I don't just mean the temperature. Everything feels less tamed than it does down south. It's like the land is darker and stronger and colder than you – and there's nothing us piddly humans can do about it. There is no alternative but to feel alive up here – you can't hide yourself away from what's all around you.

Which is just what I needed. Because no, Sam hasn't been in touch. I know you wanted me to confront her before I left but it just didn't feel like the right time. She's too wrapped up in that toff to even notice me. So, mate, it's good to be away right now. The longer I'm away actually, the more I think I'm getting over her. She's been in my head for long enough! Anyway there's this really hot production manager up here helping me keep my mind off things. Nothing serious but she's fun and it's nice to be the one being chased for a change.

Mara seems OK. Honestly, mate, I really wouldn't get your hopes up about her.

Ed

SAM

I didn't intend to be sharing a small table with my mother and Rebecca at Kow Ling's with a dildo in my bag. That wasn't the plan at all. The plan that evening was to find some suitably outrageously coloured fishnet stockings to wear to this damn gig I'd agreed to go to. I was thinking fluoro pink, or yellow or something. Something garish and punky. I knew that no one attending the gig would bat an eyelid but at least I'd feel more like the rebel I wanted to be. I didn't like Coldplay but I sure as hell wasn't going to just wibble along to it unconsciously. No, I was going to be awake and scathing and wearing really ugly fishnets to prove it. And the plan was to pick some up en route to the restaurant.

The complicating factor to the plan was this. I, wandering past a sex shop, had a blinding moment of inspiration and went inside. Sure enough, there had the kind of tawdry stockings I was looking for, lined up in crisp packets, and I chose a pair with a fluorescent leopard-skin pattern on them almost immediately. So far, so 1983 gone wrong. However I had a little time on my hands, which is never a good thing for me, especially when I had cash in my wallet. This is where the plan started to go awry.

The drinks and lingering smooch with Charlie a couple of nights ago had, unsurprisingly, been sloshing around my head ever since. In particular, I couldn't stop thinking about Charlie's observations regarding my abundance of vim vam voom, my passion, my boiling belligerence, as he saw it. I had sighed many times recalling that conversation. I, ever hungry for a compliment, had lapped up the attention and had thrown out my intentions to sever ties with Charlie on the spot. He was keen, he was keen, he was most definitely keen, people! I couldn't walk away from that, not after all the work I had put in to catching him.

But. And this was the rub. I had been thinking hard during the previous sigh-filled days and I was starting to wonder if the gregarious, slightly rude person I had always presented to the world – most definitely to Charlie – wasn't just that, a presentation. Was that really who I was underneath? Was that really who I wanted to be? It was the weekend at his parents that had shaken me up. I couldn't get rid of the shame of my behaviour. I had crossed my own moral line, stepping away from being a sarcastic quibbler into the territory of being downright rude. And it didn't feel right, not one little bit.

So there I was in a sex shop, looking at dildos and handcuffs and lacy fanny floss, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

 

Just got off phone from Dad – he was asking if you were all better.

 

Oh God, now I had to think about Charlie's dad!

 

That's sweet of him. Did you tell him the Dickhead H6 virus has almost finished?

 

Hahaha. You crazy woman.

 

Crazy woman . . .

‘I wonder,' I murmured at the racks of fake penises. And my mind ticked over: if I could be excessively passionate and – what was it – ‘boiling inside' in the bedroom, then maybe he wouldn't notice if I was making a complete arsehole of myself the rest of the time. I wouldn't have to be outspoken and bordering on rude just to show off to him. Instead I'd give him fireworks in bed, and then when we were married and spending lots of time with his parents, I'd be as nice as pie and he'd have forgotten that he loved me for being offensive.

I paid for the dildo and tights within seconds. I had it all figured out.

‘So what have you been buying? Thought you were broke?' Rebecca gave the bag a swift little kick with a navy suede toe.

‘Hey, don't do that!'

Rebecca laughed. ‘Well, share then. What have you been buying?'

I recognised that look in my sister's eye. It was stubborn, grade five. I had to throw her something to get her off my back. I bent down and tried to open it without showing the entire contents and pulled out the tights, throwing them across to Rebecca.

‘Hmmm.' Rebecca picked them up from her lap and turned them over with doubtful fingers. ‘Delightful.'

‘Yeah, well, I felt like a bit of trash.'

‘For a change?' Rebecca smirked.

‘Rebecca!'

‘It's all right, Mum, I'm used to it.' I glared at my sister. ‘They're to wear to a gig. Coldplay.'

Rebecca looked confused.

‘Exactly.'

‘God, you're so cryptic sometimes, Sam.' Rebecca threw the tights back, no longer interested.

‘That sounds like fun, dear,' Mum offered. I stiffened with annoyance at her bright, encouraging tone and exhaled through my nose violently.

‘Well, I really hate them actually, Mum.'

‘Oh.' She paused for a moment. ‘Then why—'

‘Charlie's taking me.'

‘Oh! Oh, right.'

Rebecca whipped her head up from intensely studying her nails and gave me a hard, glittering stare that I felt cutting into my middle. It lasted only a moment though and she snapped back to her more normal level of disdain and kicked the bag again.

‘So what else is in there?'

‘Nothing.' I coloured. What could I say to put her off?

‘Doesn't feel like nothing to me!' And Rebecca had snatched the bag before I could stop her and was holding it above the table, reaching in, feeling something and pulling it out.

Fuck.

A shiny gold dildo being held aloft in Rebecca's talons.

‘Ooooh! You naughty thing!'

There was a moment – which felt like forever – before Mum realised what was happening, and I thought that perhaps Rebecca would stuff it back into the bag before Mum registered, before we actually had to have a conversation about it, because surely, surely Rebecca wouldn't want to embarrass Mum as well as me?

‘I really don't want to know what you're going to do with it!' Rebecca uttered, this time shrieking and shaking the totally fucking transparent box.

‘Rebecca! Give it back!'

I desperately tried to snatch it from her but she held it out of my reach, taunting me and laughing.

‘Stop it!' Mum's angry-beast voice came out of nowhere and cut through the hysteria with immediate effect. Rebecca sat down, chastened, and passed the dildo back to me.

‘Sorry.'

‘I should think so, you're making a scene.'

We looked around. People were turning away now, tittering into their noodles. I felt my blood hammering through every vessel in my body. I hadn't heard that voice for many years but it couldn't have come at a better time.

‘It's a present for someone at work, a joke for a hen night,' I squeaked.

‘We're not discussing it, Sam.' And Mum opened the heavy brown vinyl-bound menu decisively. ‘Now what are we going to eat?'

I stared at the menu unseeing, still reeling from the embarrassment of having the only dildo I'd ever purchased waved around in a restaurant in front of my mother. But also, as I turned the plastic pages, I was still hurting from the freezing stare Rebecca gave me when she heard I was going with Charlie to this stupid gig. That was completely unnecessary. Completely.