Strangers (28 page)

Jill tried to interrupt but Charlie raced on.

“You made him practice the piano when he’d rather have been playing football.
You
made
him compete with me.
You didn’t let him be Michael.
He was always Charlie’s little brother.
He was great as he was.
He didn’t deserve to die, you’re right, but he did deserve better from all of us.”

Charlie grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her out of the house with his mother in pursuit, screaming at him.

“I’m going to write a book, Charlie.
I’m going to tell everyone what you’re really like.
See what happens to your precious career then, if women still want you.”

Charlie tried to yank Kate across the drive to the car, but she dragged her hand free.

“Charlie, calm down.
Please.”

His eyes blazed with fury.
“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down.
Get in the car.”

Kate grabbed the keys from his hand and darted backward.

“Don’t move,” she said, twisting away as he reached for her.
She ran to the house.

The door was still open.
Kate took a deep breath and walked inside.
She could hear Charlie’s mother sobbing and followed the noise.
Paul and Jill stood in a Quaker-style kitchen, their arms around each other.
Paul motioned for Kate to go back.
A moment later he joined her in the hall.
He looked like someone had run over his soul.
Kate realized what she’d seen in his eyes before and not liked was deep exhaustion.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he said.

“Whatever happened that night, Charlie will never forgive himself.
You have to believe he did everything he could to get Michael out of the car, even if he can’t believe it himself.
Whether he gave Michael the drugs or the car keys is irrelevant.
He’ll always feel responsible for his brother’s death.
He has to live with that.
Isn’t it enough?”

Paul looked at her.
“I don’t care who gave what to whom.
We lost two sons that night, not one.”

“Charlie is so unhappy.
He’s desperate to know that you love him.”

“We do love him, it’s just…he’s difficult.
The fact that he’s looking for his birth mother on top of what’s happened is too much for us now, particularly for Jill.”

“Charlie tried to kill himself,” Kate blurted out.

Even as she spoke the words, she wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing.
The remaining color drained from Paul’s face.

“Oh Christ.” He staggered and clutched his chest.

Kate was afraid he was going to have a heart attack.

“I’m sorry.
I…” She wanted the words back.

“Don’t tell Jill,” he whispered.

Kate shook her head.
“No one knows.
Only me.
I told you because I want you to understand how much pain he’s in, how much he needs you to love him.
He lost part of himself when his brother died.”

“What did he do?” Paul asked.
“Tablets?”

“He swam out to sea.”

Paul took a deep, shaky breath.
“What happened?
He changed his mind?”

Kate hesitated before she answered.
“We both did.”

Paul leaned against the wall.
“Oh my God.
Was it some pact?
What—?”

“We were two strangers.
We met by chance.
I was unhappy too.
So, I do understand how desperate Charlie felt, how lonely, how unloved.
Please don’t turn your back on him.
He has to…to find himself and he wants your support.”

“Do you think he’ll try again?” Paul asked.

“He needs reasons not to.”

“Like you?”

Kate gave a little smile.
“Maybe I’m only a fleeting fix for Charlie, a weak glue holding things together.” She felt a flare of pain as she said that.
“He has to sort himself out, learn to like himself again before he can move on.
Part of that is understanding where he comes from.”

“His birth mother.” Paul sighed.
“We told him too late, when he was in his teens.
We should have said something when he was little, but Jill didn’t want to.
She wanted to pretend he wasn’t adopted and I went along with it.
It was after we told him that things started to go wrong.”

Paul ran his fingers through his hair and pressed his lips together.
Kate saw Charlie in the mannerisms.

“Tell him I’d like to meet his birth mother, too.
Not sure Jill could cope, but I’d like to thank the woman for giving us Charlie.
I do love him, you know.
So does Jill.
Charlie has been very good to us.”

Kate looked at a photograph on the radiator shelf.
“Is that Michael?” A smiling guy, with curly brown hair and dimples, stood holding a surfboard.

“Yes.”

“Could I borrow it?”

“You can keep it.
We have another.” Paul opened the frame and gave it her.

Kate slipped the photo into her purse.

“It would have been Michael’s birthday today, that’s why Charlie’s timing is poor.
Jill’s had better days.
Bring Charlie back again.
I miss him.”

Chapter Seventeen

Kate came out of the house to find Charlie pacing up and down next to the car.
When he saw her, he stopped and held out his hand.
“Give me the fucking keys.”

“I’m driving,” Kate said.

He leaned against the door to stop her opening it.
“You’re not insured.”

“Well, I promise not to kill you on the way back.”

His face remained stony.

“You need to calm down, Charlie.
I’ll drive for a while and then you can take over.
Okay?”

He sighed, but went around the other side and waited for Kate to unlock the door.

“What did you go back in for?”

“I forgot my bag.”

Kate hoped he didn’t notice the lie.

“See, families aren’t all sweetness and light,” he muttered, as Kate pulled off.

“I like your dad.”

“But not my mum?”

“Not right now.” Kate chose her words with care.
“She shouldn’t have said that, but she’s blinded by pain.”

“And I’m not?” he snapped.

“Charlie, don’t.
This isn’t just about you.”

Neither of them spoke again until Charlie said, “This is the wrong way.
We missed the road.
Find somewhere to turn.”

Kate did as he said and followed instructions to get back to the main road.

They continued in silence for a while and then Charlie said, “I’d forgotten it was his birthday.”

“I don’t think that was the problem.”

He twisted his hands on his lap.
“I miss him.”

“I know you do.”

“Like you miss your mum and dad?”

Kate kept her eyes on the road.
This was her chance to tell Charlie the truth, but after the scene in the house, she didn’t want to.

“Course you do,” he muttered.

“I don’t remember them,” Kate said.
“I don’t even remember what my mum looked like.
I don’t remember what it was like to have someone who cared for me because they wanted to, not because they were paid to do it.”

“I…that’s sad.”

“That’s life.”

“You must have formed attachments to some of the people who looked after you.”

No, she hadn’t, because nothing ever lasted.
People moved on or she did, so there was no point.

“I told you I wasn’t an easy kid,” Kate said.
“I think I misbehaved because I was testing people, seeing if they could love me even when I was bad.
And while I pushed them away, I still hoped someone would tell me I was beautiful and clever, that I could be whatever I wanted.
You had that.”

“And threw it away.”

“No, you fed on it, flourished on it.
Jill and Paul made you, Charlie, and they love you.
They’d love you no matter what you did.
That’s something special.
So when you look for the woman who gave birth to you, remember that’s all she did, let you grow inside her.
Your real mum and dad are back there.”

Kate heard him sniffing.

Charlie let out a shaky breath.
“I guess your parents didn’t get eaten by piranhas?”

“No.”

“Or die of the Ebola virus?”

“No.”

Charlie waited and Kate knew he expected her to say more, but she couldn’t.
Her mouth felt like she’d been eating dry crackers.
She didn’t want to remember.
Even thinking about remembering turned her stomach into a seething mass of worms.

“I’ve just opened my fucking heart and you still can’t talk to me.” His voice grew harsher.
“Maybe they’re not even dead.
Are they living happily in a semi in Milton Keynes?
Maybe they chucked you out.
Maybe you left them.
Have you made up your history to make me feel sorry for you?”

Kate chewed her lip.

“Did you sleep around, Kate?
Get pregnant?
Have an abortion?
What secrets are you hiding?”

A red rage rose inside her.
How could he turn this back on her?
She couldn’t stop herself snapping.
“Whose drugs, Charlie?
Car keys stolen or given?”

“What do you think?
You know what I’m like.
Stop here.”

Kate slammed on the brakes, switched off the engine and turned to face him.
“Tell me the truth.”

“Michael’s drugs.
He stole the keys.” Charlie fixed his eyes on some distant point.
“I was trying to make it easier for them.
I thought if they could blame me, then they could forgive me.
But it was Michael’s coke.
He brought it, he lifted the keys from my pocket.” He paused.
“But I did lie to them.” He turned to Kate, his dark eyes full of pain.
“He was conscious when I got to the car.
I dragged the girl out.
She was breathing but unconscious.
Michael pleaded with me to get him out, yelled at me that I wasn’t pulling hard enough, not trying hard enough.
I’d have cut his bloody legs off if I could, but there was no way to move him and the fire got hotter and I knew he was going to die.
He knew it too.
He begged me not to leave him.”

Kate reached out to take his hand, his fingers shaking in hers.

“But I had to.
I couldn’t breathe.
I had to leave him.
Oh, God.
He screamed.
Then, he stopped.
He wasn’t conscious then, but I…”

He burst into tears, wrenched his hand from hers and jumped out of the car.
When he stalked off down the road, Kate went after him.
He bounded up to the nearest lamppost and kicked it.
Kate took hold of his arm and tried to pull him away.

“Charlie, don’t.”

“The council sent them a bill for the lamppost.
How could they do that?
Send a bill for a fucking lamppost to a bereaved family?”

He kicked out again and then hit the post with his fist.
Blood sprayed from his knuckles and Kate clung to his arm.

“Please, Charlie.”

She held on to him as he struggled to get free, smearing them both with blood, but she wouldn’t let go and in the end Charlie stopped fighting.
For a moment, he let her hold him.
Kate wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her head into his shoulder.
Then he yanked the keys from her pocket and ran.

“I want to drive.
It’s my fucking car,” he shouted.

Charlie got in the driver’s side, intending to drive off without her, afraid for her safety if she got back in with him, but afraid for his safety if she didn’t.
Kate pulled open the passenger door and sat down.
He stared at her for a moment, waited until she’d fastened her seat belt and then roared off into the gloom.

He drove fast.
Lights flashed past.
He overtook every vehicle he came up behind.
Other drivers blared their horns, the noise remaining in his head long after he’d left the vehicle in his wake.
He was hyper and reckless, teetering on the edge of disaster.

“Do you trust me, Kate?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t, but you shouldn’t anyway.”

Charlie shot past a slower vehicle and stayed on the wrong side of the road, only swerving back when approaching headlights flashed him, accompanied by another clashing symphony of car horns.
He glanced at Kate, expecting to see her gripping the sides of her seat, but her hands lay folded on her lap.
He wanted her to scream at him to slow down, to stop, to let her drive.

“Do you trust me, Kate?” he asked again.

“I’m trusting you with my life.”

She let out a gasp as Charlie overtook a line of three vehicles and only just managed to pull back in before a sharp bend.

“When are you going to tell me to slow down?”

“I’m not.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t you yelling at me?”

“Do you want me to?” Kate asked.

“Yes.
You’re my leveler.
You’re the one who stops me spilling over the top of the glass, stops me biting my nails, stops me being a dickhead, stops me killing myself.”

“You have to take charge of your future.”

“Which shrink told you that?
This is your future, too.
If I die, you die with me.”

The road opened out into a dual carriage way and the car surged forward.

“Tell me to slow down,” he demanded.

“Slow down, Charlie.”

“I will if you unzip me and wrap your mouth round my cock.” He glanced away from the road to her face.
Her eyes were fixed on his.

“No,” she said.
“If we’re going to die, it’s not going to be my fault.”

Charlie was boiling.
Fury and guilt surged around his bloodstream, writhing together like battling snakes until every part of him was wound to breaking point.
He slammed his foot on the brake and pulled off the road into a picnic spot.
Driving deep into an empty car park, he screeched to a halt in a sideways skid before switching off the engine.
He turned to face her.
Kate’s face looked pale in the darkness, her eyes wide.
He was breathing in short, fast gasps.
He’d wanted her to stop him.
Why hadn’t she?

“What happened to your parents?
The truth,” he said.

Kate hesitated.

“I open my heart to you and you can’t fucking give me one simple thing.” He grabbed her head and mashed his lips hard against hers.
Pressing her back in her seat, Charlie pinned her in place.
One hand moved to her breast, kneading it through her dress, pinching her nipple between his fingers.
She squirmed in pain and tried to kiss him back, but he wouldn’t let her.
He didn’t want her to be kind.

Charlie yanked her back across his seat and out of the car, slamming her up against the door.