Strangers (10 page)

Kate watched Charlie’s fingers rubbing hers.
“I don’t see the point in anything,” she said.
“I don’t feel part of the world.
No one needs me or wants me or even likes me very much.
I don’t like myself.
The world will keep turning without me.
I’ll be no great loss.
I’m just a temporary misuse of a minute amount of carbon.”

Why was she telling him this?
This wasn’t like her.

Charlie’s grip tightened.
“You’re going to try again, aren’t you?”

“No,” Kate lied.
But he looked at her with those huge seal pup eyes and she wasn’t sure he believed her.
“Are you?”

“I should.
The world would not only continue to turn without me, it would give a hop, skip and a jump for joy.”

He released her hand.
Kate stretched her fingers.
He’d held them so hard, they’d gone numb.

“What else have you done?” she asked.

“Fucked around and messed up everything.”

“Tell me.”

He hesitated.
“I’m as bad as Dickhead.
I’ve slept with more women than I can count and when I found one I liked, I slept with her sister.” He paused.
“And her mother.”

Kate’s mouth dropped open.
“At the same time?”

“That might have been worth it.” Charlie gave a cheeky grin and Kate couldn’t help smiling.

“I hope you didn’t get them all pregnant?”

“God, Kate, I’m not that bad.” He thought for a moment.
“Well, I am, but I’m careful.”

“What was the name of the one you liked?”

“Jennifer.
Why?”

“Checking you could remember.”

“Who are you again?”

“Mermaid.”

He raised his hand to her face but let it drop before he touched her.

“Have you lost her forever?” Kate asked.

“Since she and her mother caught me in bed with the sister, I think so, don’t you?
Anyway, it isn’t just the sleeping around.
There’s other stuff.
I’m rarely sober before midday and generally unconscious before midnight.
I smoke too much.
I drink too much.
I use too much coke.
I fuck too many women, though still not as many as people think.
I’ve even fucked a few men.” He looked at her as he said that, but she didn’t let her face change.

“I don’t care about stuff I should care about.
I’m the biggest fuck up I can be.
I’ve made an art of it.”

He was on a roll now.
Kate could almost see the words pouring out.

“Everyone wants a piece of me.
They all think they own me, just because they know my face.
They come up and say ‘I know you’.
They don’t fucking know me at all.”

“What about your friends?”

“What friends?
I can’t trust any of them.
How do I know the ones who say they’re my friends, really are, that they aren’t going to sell me out to the highest bidder?
How do I know you’re not going to ring the
News of the World
the moment I leave here?”

“How much could I get?”

“A lot.
Pay your mortgage on this place,” he snapped.

“I don’t have a mortgage.”

He looked taken aback for a moment.

“Has a friend sold you out, Charlie?”

She watched his cheeks hollow.
“Yeah.
Not kiss and tell, kiss and lie.
The bitch.”

“I would never tell the papers anything,” she said.

He glanced at her and Kate saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“My agent was the only one who cared, but I’m a client.
I made him money.
It was in Ethan’s interests to keep me happy.
Once I started to have problems, he dumped me.
My family never wanted me to go into this business in the first place, but they don’t understand the pressure.
After what happened to Michael they…” Charlie took a few deep breaths before he could continue.
Kate rubbed the back of his hand.

“I can’t trust anyone.
I’m tired of being followed.
I’m tired of people waiting for me to fuck up.
They know I will and what’s worse, they want me to.
They’re happy knowing I’m no different to them.
They think I don’t deserve what I have and they’re right.
But they don’t see the other side.
I’m tired of my life not being mine, of not being able to do what I want, when I want.
So I figured I’d exercise the last piece of control I had and kill myself.”

He’d raced through that, almost to the point of not taking a breath and now he opened his eyes wide and looked at her.

He’s so beautiful
, Kate thought.

“We’re both feeling sorry for ourselves.
No one wants me and too many people want you,” she said.

“Sounds like I could solve part of that.
I want you,” he whispered.

“But then I’d be adding to your problems by being one of the too many people who want you.”

“I don’t care,” Charlie said.
“You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.
Listen to me, Kate.
I want you.”

“More than a cigarette, a drink or a line of coke?”

“At this moment, yes.”

“Not good enough,” she said.

Charlie smiled.
“Okay.
So can I ask you something?”

Kate nodded.

“If you’re not going to go to bed with me, would you go and buy me some cigarettes?”

“No.
It’s a nasty habit.
They can kill you.
It says so on the packet.
Give them up.”

“How about some booze?”

“No.
According to the government, excessive consumption of alcohol can be fatal.”

He got to his feet and glared.
Kate struggled not to laugh.

“Go yourself, if you’re that desperate,” she said.

“Dressed like this?”

“Yesterday I got on a bus wearing a wedding dress.
I think you could go to the shop in my sleep pants without raising an eyebrow.
Anyway your clothes are dry, just not your shoes.”

“Please.
I’ll get recognized.”

“No.
This is the moment to give up cigarettes, at least.
You must have some willpower, although judging by the state of your nails, it’s probably a weak little thing confined to a poky corner in your head.”

“God, you’re a bitch.”

But Kate caught the glimmer of a smile on his face as he slumped onto the couch.

“Where’s your TV?” He looked around as though it was going to pop out of the floor like some state-of-the-art gizmo.

“Don’t have one.”

“Music player?
CDs?” He swung his feet up and lay back.

“Nope.”

“Why not, for fuck’s sake?”

“I like the quiet.
I was brought up in places that were continuously noisy.
There was always someone shouting or fighting or the TV blaring and nowhere to get away from it.”

“Don’t you like listening to music?”

“I listen on the computer sometimes when I’m sewing.”

“You are so weird.
What am I going to do to amuse myself?
No TV and you won’t let me fuck you.
How about you model some of your underwear?”

Her head shot up.
“Been through my drawers, Charlie?”

“Not the ones I’d like to go through.” He gave her a lascivious grin.

“Like what you saw?”

“Even better if you were wearing them, only the removing would be fun.”

“Well, maybe there is something we could do together.
It involves careful finger work and some manipulation.
And there is a huge amount of satisfaction when you finish.
Wait there.”

Kate left the room and came back carrying a box.

“A jigsaw puzzle?” He gaped at her.

“Two thousand five hundred pieces.”

“Is it rude?”

Kate pretended to read the box.
“Swinging in the suburbs.”

His eyes opened wide.

“Not really.
It’s a jungle scene,” she said.

Kate sat on the floor, opened the box and looked for the edges and corners.
After a few minutes spent muttering crossly to himself, Charlie got down by her side.
His hand fumbled through the pieces at the other side of the box.

They worked together in silence, but when their fingers touched as they reached for the same straight-edged piece, Kate felt a jolt of desire.
Her eyes rose to Charlie’s and she watched the bony lump in his throat go up and down.

“What do you do in the evenings if you don’t have a TV?” Charlie asked.

“Sew, read, mess around on the computer.”

“Do jigsaws?”

“Yes.”

“A corner,” he said.
“Hey, look these bits go together.”

“Yeah, if you force them.” Kate took them apart again.

“Is being a waitress hard work?” he asked.

“Yes.
Is acting?”

“Miss Snippy.”

“I’m not just a waitress,” she said, feeling defensive.

“What else do you do?”

“Take calls on a phone sex line two evenings a week.”

His hand froze in the box and he raised his head to stare straight at her.

“You’re kidding, right?”

No, she wasn’t kidding.
Kate wasn’t sure what had made her tell him.
Well, not quite true.
She wanted to shock him.
She picked out a few more pieces.

“So not a computer course?”

“No.
I also help write the catalogue for Rachel’s art gallery.”

Charlie was quiet for a moment.
“So, the phone sex…” he began and Kate smiled.
“You’re kidding, right?” he repeated.

“No.”

“Are you doing it tonight by any chance?”

“Sundays and Wednesdays.”

“It’s only Friday,” Charlie whined.

“That’s true.” Kate spread out several pieces of a similar color.

“I could ring you anyway.
What’s the number?”

“Where’s your phone?”

Charlie swore under his breath.
“Why do you do it?”

“Why did you decide to be an actor instead of a singer?”

“I haven’t finished talking about the phone sex.
We don’t have to have a phone.
I could go in another room and we could shout.”

Kate burst out laughing.
“Why did you want to be an actor, Charlie?”

He sighed.
“I didn’t want to be me anymore.
I wanted to be somebody else.”

“What sort of roles have you played?”

“Haven’t you even seen
any
of the films I’ve been in?”

Kate shook her head.

“I like making people cry and scream,” he said, his tone curt.

“So you usually end up dead after you’ve smacked a few people around?”

“True.”

“You like being hated,” Kate said.

He shot her a quick look.
“I’m fed up of being loved.
Most of my mail comes with photos of naked women offering to sleep with me.
Maybe I see playing bad guys as a way of balancing that.”

“I doubt it’s worked.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you women like bad guys?
Particularly ones on screen that they know aren’t bad in real life.”

“The thing is, I am.”

“You aren’t going to stop women wanting you.
Isn’t it a perk of the job?”

“Not anymore.
I wonder had I known what it would be like, if I’d still have taken the path I did.
No one told me that once I was famous it was forever, and everyone would be waiting for me to cock up.
There’s always someone ready to snap me looking hung over or taking a swing at a guy, because seeing me fuck up makes them feel better.
Do you think they get some sick sense of satisfaction knowing that deep down, I’m the same as them?” He paused.
“All right, worse than them.”

“You know, Charlie, I reckon you like acting because you don’t know who you are.
You think it will help you find yourself and it won’t.
You’re running away from reality, running away from the truth.”

“We’re not the right people to be talking to each other about this,” Charlie muttered.

“There’s no one else around.”

“I want to
be
someone,” he said in a quiet voice.

“But you
are
someone.
I don’t think it matters what you do for a living, whether you’re an actor or waitress.
What’s important is to be a decent human being and to treat other people as you’d want to be treated yourself.
Not to be selfish.
I don’t like selfish people, those who don’t think about others.”

“I’m selfish.”

“But you have a redeeming quality.”

“What’s that?”

“You know you’re selfish.
You have to learn to like yourself, Charlie, otherwise how can anyone else get to know and like you?”

He stared at her for a moment and then the pissed-off expression dropped from his face, and she saw the hint of a smile.

“So did Dickhead listen to you while you were doing it?”

“Doing what?” Kate asked, though she knew what he meant.

“Helping guys jerk off.”

“I never told him.
He thought I was doing the computer course.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

She’d had the chance to tell Richard on lots of occasions, but something stopped her.
A knowledge that he wouldn’t approve?

“He wouldn’t have understood.”

“What?
Why the hell did you plan to marry this guy?
I’m really interested in your life, particularly the underwear and the phone sex.”

Kate smiled.
“You have a one-track mind.”

“That’s the title of one of my songs.” He waited a moment before he continued.
“You didn’t ask me to sing it.”

“No.” Kate saw the tension seeping from him.
“You’ll give me a headache.”

He roared with laughter.
“Why did you tell me about the phone sex?”

“You need honesty.
You shared part of yourself with me and I wanted to do the same.
Anyway, I’m not doing it this week.
I’m supposed to be in Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?”

“Don’t say it.
I know I should have realized it was crazy.”

“Were you going to stop once you were married?”

“Are you still on the phone sex?”

He gave her a sheepish grin.

“It depended,” Kate said.

“On what?”

“Whether I still needed to do it.”

“If you own this place, it can’t have been for the money.”

But it was.

“What then?” He looked puzzled.

“Whether I still needed the rush of getting men to cry and scream.”

He chuckled.
Kate looked down into the box as he drew one of his fingers along one of hers, over her knuckle, down the back of her hand to her wrist.
Oh fuck.
Her nipples tingled and she felt a rush of warmth between her legs.

“Look at me, Kate.”