by Lily Morton
I repress a smile. I’m not sure why it makes me so happy that they’re having problems. Maybe my mum is right, and I need to start aligning my chakras because my personality is obviously on a downturn if I don’t want my best friend to be happy.
My inner smile drops a peg or two when I think of how I’d found him on the beach this evening. He’d looked sad and worried, and I couldn’t stand it. I’ve never been able to cope with Charlie being unhappy. It throws my whole world out. However, helping Charlie be with that wanker Harry would do the opposite of making him happy.
I throw my drink back, savouring the peaty burn, and watch Jamie the birthday boy greeting Charlie as enthusiastically as a golden retriever. There’s something rather endearing about Jamie. He met Charlie on a fundraising day for public libraries. Get Charlie on the subject of the shortfalls in library budgets. I dare you. He’s loudly passionate.
Anyway, Jamie imprinted on him like a very posh duckling, turning up wherever we happened to be, his face alight with admiration for my gorgeous librarian. Jamie’s family are immensely wealthy, and it seems he has little else to do but follow Charlie around. However, he doesn’t grate on me like Harry, and we’ve accepted him into our group happily, if not a little bewildered. It’s puzzling how someone so rich could find it good fun to hang out at Charlie’s flat which seemed to be vying for slum decor of the year. I think Jamie accepts that Charlie doesn’t see him as a potential love interest, and he’s definitely gained a tiny bit of my approval by staying around to become a friend to him.
Now he hugs him, smiling happily at the brightly wrapped parcel that Charlie hands him. I roll my eyes. I bet it’s a book. Charlie is renowned in our group for giving books as presents that he wants to read himself. Sometimes he’ll even buy his own copy so the lucky recipient can have lengthy conversations about the book with him. In my case, he usually just borrows it back after a few days. Never fails to make me smile.
A waiter appears in the doorway. “Dinner is served,” he says and gestures us into the private dining room where we’ll be eating tonight. The table is long and tiny cards with our names on them mark our places. I’m relieved to find that I’m not sitting next to Harry. His personality would give me indigestion. A multitude of candles sparkle in their glass bowls on the table. More candles burn in the windows, their reflections making the glass glisten, and fresh flowers emit a heavy perfume that saturates the air.
It’s a lovely view, and I smile as I see Charlie looking at the candles approvingly.
He catches my smile. “What?” he asks.
I gesture at the candles. “The place is made for you.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but Harry turns back. “Charlie, apparently you’re sitting with me,” he says sharply and gestures to the place setting in front of him imperiously. I glare at him. If he’d clicked his fingers, he’d have been more subtle.
Charlie looks at him for a long moment, and I puzzle over Charlie’s expression as I sit down. I realise with shock that it’s detachment. It’s all wrong on Charlie’s face, like he’s trying on someone else’s skin for a joke. Typically, he’s sociable and warm with his boyfriends. He’s always concerned for their well-being. I suspect that being with Charlie is like having him wrap you in a warm blanket like the ones on his bed.
There’s something almost insolent in Charlie’s leisurely amble over to where Harry is waiting, fingers tapping on the chair. The corners of my mouth tip up in approval.
Waiters start to move around us, serving the starters, and the room fills with the sound of excited chatter. I sip my wine and look around.
These people are really not my sort of crowd. They’re insanely posh, for a start. I deal with people like them every day, catering to their demands and their arrogance, and they tolerate me because I make them a lot of money. Or rather, I deal with their daddies because this sort is the next generation. Not quite ready to take over the reins of the family business or to marry the right men and pop out the next load of self-entitled children with names like Tarquin or Sebastian, they exist in the here and now, their whole lives dedicated to the pursuit of fun. But the right kind of fun. The trendy, expensive kind of fun.
I’ve skied alongside people like this, sat on beaches in far-flung places and listened to their cut-glass accents. Their voices are always loud, as they’re totally unconcerned with what ordinary people might think of them. Candlelight flickers across the tanned shoulders of the girls and makes their unlined faces glow.
The food is superb, but I pick at mine. I’m not feeling this weekend, but I knew it would be like this. It’s not as if I was expecting a fun time. I’m here for Charlie. My eyes automatically seek him out. He’s leaning across the table talking to Jamie, and Jamie’s laugh rises high above the noise of the group.
The girl sitting opposite me looks over too, and her expression pinches in disapproval. She’s beautiful with long red hair that glows in the candlelight, but the scowl on her face makes her look almost ugly.
The blonde girl next to her nudges her. “What’s up with you?”
“Just looking at Jamie slobbering over that Charlie bloke.”
“What’s the problem with that?”
The redhead shrugs. “It’s just such a massive waste of his time. Oliver tried to set him up with Lorcan, but Jamie didn’t want to know. Too obsessed with his librarian. He works in a council library, for God’s sake. It’s so common. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were at Oxford or Cambridge.”
“He’s very good-looking though,” the blonde girl offers. “All that hair is lovely, and he’s got a smashing smile.”
The redhead shrugs. “I can’t see the attraction myself. God knows what he has that Lorcan doesn’t.”
“Brains,” I offer, and the two girls stop talking abruptly, staring at me. “Just a thought,” I say, taking a sip of my drink. “Or maybe the appeal is that Charlie’s family aren’t an advertisement for years of interbreeding.”
“How rude,” the blonde says, licking her lips and staring at me with sudden interest.
Great, I’ve got one who’s attracted to rudeness.
A plump man who’s sitting near to Charlie looks over at the redhead. “Did you say a librarian? Here? With us?” His face is red and sweaty, and his chins wobble in amazement, as though he’s stunned that someone at this table might actually have a job that requires a brain rather than a parent who owns the company.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, staring at Charlie, who has stiffened. “This is so epic.”
He winks at me before we turn back to the conversation.
“Charlie is a librarian,” Jamie says. “I introduced him to you when we sat down, Nigel.”
Nigel stares at Charlie. “Don’t think I’ve ever met a librarian before.”
Charlie, being Charlie, smiles kindly at him. “We’re not dodos.”
“Might as well be,” Nigel says and laughs loudly. “The way they’re closing the libraries. Good thing too.”
“Wondrous,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “What do you mean it’s a good thing?”
Nigel shrugs and drains his wine. “All those big buildings sitting on prime real estate. And what for? So dole bludgers can go in and get advice on how to bleed the system. The library near my father’s house closed last year. We’d had our eye on it for years. Right in the middle of Primrose Hill. My pops bought it, knocked it down, and built executive housing on it.”
Everyone nearby smiles as if his father is Willy Wonka and giving out free chocolate. Everyone apart from Charlie.
“Didn’t he feel guilty for depriving the area of a much-needed resource?” he says coolly.
Harry stirs. “Leave it, for Christ’s sake, Charlie. It’s just a library.”
Charlie looks at Harry. “And you’re just a banker. I sincerely hope you never become endangered.”
I don’t do enough to suppress my laugh.
Nigel stares at Charlie in perplexed astonish
ment. “Why on earth would my father feel guilty? I’m sorry if your feelings are hurt, but libraries are yesterday’s news. They’re no use anymore. People who read do it on their devices now. Machines have taken over, and books are old hat. Everything is on the internet. So what use is a bloody big building full of books that no one reads and librarians walking around saying shush every five seconds? Better to have productive members of society using the land. People who contribute to keeping this bloody country running.”
“Libraries are about a tad more than books.” Charlie’s voice is so dry that it probably needs its own drink. “Some people have never used a computer in their lives, and some older women have never even used the phone because their husbands always did it for them. So a machine won’t exactly help with any of that. It also won’t provide a cup of tea and a kind word for a library user who can’t afford to heat their home because their pension doesn’t stretch to silly fripperies like heat. They’re usually even more grateful for the kind word because, you see, some old people, unlike socialites, don’t see a soul all day.” His tone becomes biting, and his face cold. “Libraries are about much more than just computers and books and shushing. If we spent our time shushing people, we’d be showering them in spit for twelve hours a day what with all the noisy things that go on in a library. Like the memory group for people with dementia, the knit and natter groups, the computer education classes for people just out of prison, the story times for children. All of that accompanied by the thundering sound of the photocopier which is probably older than the building itself given the council’s propensity for cutting corners on library budgets. But hey, you don’t need to worry about that because you’re rich. I understand that. But I hope you never lose your job or your daddy’s company goes bust because you might need a library then. Jobcentres are very fond of telling people to come to libraries for services that they should already be providing, and it’s a librarian who’ll have to help you. That’s if you haven’t torn down the library to make houses for professionals.”
There’s a long stunned silence which I break by clapping. “That was like a lion taking down a hamster,” I say cheerfully, and Charlie’s stern face breaks into a smile.
“Shall we go to the club?” one of the posh girls asks frigidly. I can’t remember her name—Hetty or Vexed or Catastrophically Boring. There’s an instant murmur of agreement, and everyone stands up and starts to leave the room, eager to get away from the stroppy librarian.
What occurs next happens very quickly. Charlie gets halfway across the floor to the door and then stops dead with a fixed expression on his face.
“Shit,” I mutter and push my way through the group. I’m not there in time to catch him before he falls, but I am in time to see him fall towards Harry, who quite deliberately steps back. Charlie crashes to the floor, and I skid to a stop next to him. Rage burns in me, but I push it down so I can help Charlie.
“Get back, please,” I order the group as they all crouch over him, staring at him like he’s on the Paris catwalk. “Give him some space.”
“What’s the matter with him?” the redhead says. “Is he pissed?” She shakes her head. “That would explain a lot.”
“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” I snap, and she recoils. “He has epilepsy. He’s having a seizure.”
I pull off my jacket to cover Charlie and then look around to check that there’s nothing he can bang his head on. I’m just pushing a chair away when Jamie crouches down next to me.
“Shit,” he says, patting Charlie’s hand gently. “Is he in pain? He’s making a noise.”
That noise is a low keening sound. It always sends the hairs up on the back of my neck, but I have to tell myself that he’s fine. “He’s okay,” I say. “He won’t remember anything afterwards. It’s just a noise that a lot of people make during a seizure.” I check my watch and note the time.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Timing the seizure.”
“Why?”
“Because if it lasts over five minutes, we’ll have to call an ambulance.”
“Fuck.” He looks panicked. “Has that happened before?”
I shake my head. “No, but he’s not been well lately.”
Jamie looks around at his friends who are still staring and muttering. “Off you go,” he says, an unusual note of command in his voice. “It’s not London Zoo.” The group mutters but disperses quickly, and I smile at him in gratitude.
I stroke Charlie’s hair back as he judders, his heels drumming on the floor. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I say to him. “I’m here.” He’s oblivious, but I always talk to him and stroke his hair as if he knows I’m here. It might be that a tiny part of his brain is aware, and he won’t feel so alone, so I’ll always do it.
I catch the expression of disgust on Harry’s face as he stares down at Charlie. He must sense my gaze because he looks up and stills before having the grace to flush. “I think you should go,” I say sternly, and he swallows hard before nodding and exiting the room.
I look down at my watch. “Three minutes, sunshine,” I say to my best friend. “Get it done now, Charlie.”
The juddering carries on, his teeth clenched.
“You’re so calm,” Jamie says. “How many of these have you seen?”
“Far too fucking many.” I stroke the long waves of Charlie’s hair back. They’re soft as silk on my fingers. “I’ve hated every fucking one,” I confide, looking up at Jamie.
He’s sitting next to Charlie, stroking his arm. He nods sadly. “I don’t blame you. I don’t like seeing him like this. It’s so unfair.” He pauses. “I thought you had to put something between his teeth?”
I smile. “Shit, no. Not unless you’ve got a useless finger and fancy losing it.”
He gives a sad smile, and we watch as the seizure loses force, and the juddering gradually stops.
“Okay, babe,” I say briskly. “Over on your side.” I help him into the recovery position and look at Jamie. “Can you grab a blanket from somewhere? He’s always cold when he comes round.”
He nods and dashes out of the room, and I crouch next to Charlie, still stroking his hair. “Come on back now, sunshine.”
His eyes flutter, and then I’m looking into the bleary blue eyes of the person who means the most to me in the whole world.
“Hey, you,” I say softly.
He looks around, and I hate the almost hopeless look of resignation in his eyes. It doesn’t sit well on Charlie’s face. He’s made for sunshine and smiles. “Shit, I had a turn.”
“You did,” I say briskly. “And thankfully you’ve got us out of going to a nightclub tonight with people who are by and large less educated than a bunch of babies. So, well done, you.”
“Don’t be nasty,” he whispers with a half-smile.
I roll my eyes. “There’s more inbreeding in this group than at Crufts.”
His pale lips quirk, and then he sighs. “Tell me the truth. Did I piss myself or worse?”
“Nope, but don’t worry, the night is still young,” I say, pinning a smile on my face when I just want to cry. To hug him close and keep him safe and weep.
He starts to struggle up, and I help him, bolstering his body when he falters. “I’m as weak as a kitten,” he says, staggering slightly as he gets to his feet. He shivers violently, and I look up in relief as Jamie tears into the room with his arms full of blankets.
“Jesus, how many have you got?” I say.
“I got different thicknesses so he can decide which one feels best on his skin.” He looks at Charlie. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re up again.”
Charlie looks shamefaced, and I want to shout at him. He has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Not him. He’s the best fucking person in the world. “I’m so sorry,” he says to Jamie, his voice a tired thread of sound. “I’ve broken up your party.”
Jamie immediately shakes his head. “Don’t be so silly, Charlie. They’re like expensive goldfish. They’ll have forgotten
all about it by the time they got to the door.” He hugs Charlie around the shoulders. He has to reach up to do it, as Charlie is taller than him, but he does it as gently as if Charlie were a child. “I’d rather be with you and Misha.” He grins at Charlie. “Well, you anyway.”
I snort out a laugh and even Charlie smiles. It’s the final step that makes me accept Jamie as a friend. If he can be so kind to Charlie and even make him smile after a seizure, then he’s a mate for life to me.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” I say.
Still shaky, Charlie wraps his arm around my waist so I can take a little bit of his weight as we move slowly out of the room and through the foyer. I’m amazed that we’re not attracting any attention.
I look at Jamie, and he smiles. “Told the staff what had happened and asked that nobody stared or fussed.”
I nod in gratitude. Together we get Charlie into the lift, and he slumps against me. I wrap my arms around him, and he nestles closer, shivering. Jamie drapes the blanket around his shoulders. “We’ll soon be in the room,” he says earnestly to Charlie.
It takes a few minutes, but we finally stagger down the corridor to Charlie’s room, and by the time we get to the door, Charlie is moving a bit more surely. I let us in, and he lowers himself to the bed while I make a beeline to the bathroom to start the shower.
Jamie follows me in. “You’re surely not showering him now?”
I nod, testing the temperature with my fingers. “He’s cold, and he always feels gritty and dirty when he comes round.”
“Isn’t he too fuzzy?”
“I’ll get in with him. Won’t be the first time.”
“Can you take his weight?”
I look at him in incomprehension. “Of course. I’d never risk Charlie. Surely you know that?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “I know a lot more than I did, that’s for sure.”
“What do you mean?” I grab some towels and put them ready on the side.
