Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Well, I’m really pleased to have you back,’ he said, putting one big hand on her shoulder and squeezing it. ‘I missed you. And just by chance I’ve got enough mackerel for both of us for tea.’

  Charlie didn’t know how she managed to get through that long day without breaking down. After sharing a meal with Ivor she went back to the pub to find it was very busy. She had no choice but to pitch in and help. It wasn’t until after closing time that Beryl asked why she’d come back two days early.

  Although she was exhausted, drained and grieving, somehow she managed to give Beryl the same story she’d told Ivor, then pleading tiredness she managed to escape to her room before her bottled-up tears overflowed.

  A strong wind was whipping up the sea and she could hear waves slapping loudly against the harbour wall, and that was another unwanted reminder of Guy. In reality she had known him for such a short time, yet she felt that in just one week she’d left her girlhood behind and become a woman.

  How could she ever forget him? He had taken her heart, her soul and her mind. All the memories of him were so sharp. How could she go to the beach without remembering his salty kisses, or look in the high-street souvenir shops without thinking how he used to laugh at them? She could smell his skin, his hair, see his blue eyes and feel the silkiness of his blond hair. She would hear his deep tender voice telling her he would love her forever.

  Why had he spun all those dreams for her about sailing to the Med, going to parties and rock concerts in London, if he didn’t mean them? Why would anyone pretend to care so much then run away without even saying goodbye?

  She could just picture what he was doing now. He’d be all cleaned up in a clean shirt and trousers, sprawling gracefully on a settee in the drawing room of his grand home, sipping a gin and tonic and spinning the kind of yarns for his doting parents that would make them think they were fortunate to have such an adventurous son.

  Charlie had believed he was a real man, strong, dependable and courageous. How wrong she’d been. He was a mummy’s boy. A cowardly, weak and lying bastard. She just wished she could think of something to hurt him twice as much as he’d hurt her.

  But he’d burst her bubble now and she had to face reality. There would be no job, or flat in London. No parties, rock concerts, night-clubs or holidays in exotic places. The truth of the matter was that she’d been fooled into thinking she had some choice about her future. There was only one option, living in a council flat and looking after her mother.

  On Monday morning Charlie received her exam results through the post, sent on to her by Mr Wyatt. Because of everything that had happened during the last week she had forgotten they were due. When she opened the envelope her mouth fell open in surprise.

  All her teachers had assured her of good results, but they hadn’t led her to expect more than a few ‘B’-pluses. Yet she had five ‘A’s, two ‘B’-pluses, and the lowest mark was ‘C’ for History. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined getting an ‘A’ for maths. It was incredible.

  After the last two long miserable days of feeling completely worthless, it was good to have something to distract her and feel proud of. Beryl was still in bed, and not liking to wake her, Charlie got dressed hastily and ran round to Ivor’s.

  As always, Ivor didn’t let her down. He didn’t reproach her for interrupting him washing, or dither about looking for his shirt and reading glasses. Bare-chested, he just hauled her into his cottage and demanded she read the results to him.

  ‘You clever girl,’ he exclaimed, and his wide smile was one of pride in her. ‘Of course it’s what I expected. I knew right from the start you were as smart as new paint.’

  He put a spot of rum in their coffee to celebrate, and made her a bacon sandwich. Then, putting his glasses on at last, he read the certificate again.

  ‘Well done, Charlie. These results will get you the kind of job you deserve. Something a great deal better than weighing up bait. I think you ought to get straight off to Kingsbridge and tell your mum. She’ll be thrilled.’

  Charlie’s face fell. Having spent the whole weekend thinking about what living with her mother would really mean, she couldn’t face her yet.

  ‘She won’t be thrilled. She’ll just tell me not to be so smug.’

  ‘Then you must tell her you have a right to be smug.’ He waved the certificate at her. ‘This is all your doing, sweetheart, your brain, your hard work. No one but you can take credit for it.’

  Those last words of Ivor’s warmed the icy place in Charlie’s heart as she rode in the bus to Kingsbridge later on that morning. Maybe losing Guy was the last of her bad luck, and from now on things would improve.

  Her mother was sitting alone in the day room. All the other patients were either receiving some kind of treatment or they were in the conservatory or garden. Her isolation was a bad sign, though; Charlie felt she must still be upsetting everyone.

  Sylvia showed no surprise or pleasure at this unexpected visit. But undeterred, Charlie took out her exam results, along with more cigarettes, and gave them to her mother.

  She did look pleased at the cigarettes and opened one of the packets with some eagerness. But Charlie had to draw her attention back to the certificate in her lap.

  With only a very cursory glance at it, she sniffed. ‘Very good, I’m pleased to see we didn’t waste our money on your education.’

  Charlie’s heart sank. She hadn’t expected her mother to go overboard with praise, but she had hoped for a little more warmth. ‘It means I should be able to get into banking or something like that,’ she said, kneeling down by her mother’s wheelchair. ‘I’ll be able to help take care of you.’

  Sylvia folded the certificate and handed it back to her daughter. Her blue eyes were cold and her mouth pursed. ‘You’ll have to do that sooner than you expected,’ she said. ‘I’ve been offered a flat. It seems they can’t wait to get rid of me here.’

  Charlie felt she’d been dealt another body blow. She might have been thinking about this eventuality all weekend, but she hadn’t anticipated it happening for weeks, maybe even months. ‘That’s great news,’ she managed to say, getting up and turning to find a chair. She wondered if Sylvia had engineered this herself, suspecting that Charlie might find another job and home if she was in here for too long.

  ‘Great news?’ Sylvia sneered. ‘Expecting a crippled woman to cope with living alone?’

  Charlie recognized this remark as an opener to moral blackmail. All her childhood she had seen her mother use similar wiles to get people to do what she wanted. If Jin wanted a night out with a few friends, Sylvia suddenly came down with a bad stomach upset. Mrs Brown was often coerced into working extra hours when she wanted to get home to her family. She knew she was expected to assure her that she’d be there too, but some perverse instinct stopped her.

  ‘They’ll give you a home help,’ she said instead. ‘Besides, you’ll be a lot happier with your own things around you again.’

  ‘You selfish little bitch,’ Sylvia snapped viciously, rising out of her chair by her arms as if intending to box her ears. ‘Don’t for one moment think you’re going to clear off and leave me on my own. You are only sixteen, remember, too young to leave home, and I think it’s time you repaid me for all I’ve done for you.’

  A cold chill ran through Charlie’s veins. She might have been fully intending to look after her mother, but she was not going to be forced into it.

  ‘I didn’t cause your injuries,’ she retorted, gathering her fast-diminishing store of courage. ‘I’m not in debt to you either, so don’t try and blackmail me. You speak to me like that one more time and I’ll walk out the door and you’ll never see me again.’

  To her astonishment her words had quite the reverse effect to what she’d intended. Her mother’s face turned purple with instantaneous rage.

  ‘I’ll have you made a ward of court,’ she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her eyes went dark, and even more frightening, there was froth on her lips
. Charlie fully expected one of the nurses to come rushing in, the whole nursing home must have heard her.

  As no one burst in, Charlie got up and made for the door. She was really frightened now, her mother was demented. ‘You try and do it,’ she said, poised ready for flight at the door. ‘They’ll have to find me first and if and when they do, I’ll tell the court a few home truths about you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare walk away from me, you hateful little bitch!’ Sylvia yelled.

  Charlie ran as her mother screamed more abuse. Down the corridor, past a surprised-looking nurse and out the front door. She didn’t stop running until she was some 200 yards away from Franklin House and she had a stitch in her side.

  It was a warm sunny day, but Charlie was cold. Her hands were shaking and once she stopped running her legs felt as if they wouldn’t move again. She wanted to cry but she was too angry.

  She had no idea where she was intending to go, she was heading in the opposite direction to the town centre and the bus home, towards open countryside. But she carried on walking aimlessly until she came to a five-barred gate. She climbed over it, skirted round the edge of a cornfield, and once she was far enough away from the road she lay down and cried.

  She couldn’t understand why she was being singled out for so much misery. Every other old schoolfriend of hers had spent the summer enjoying themselves, while she had worked. She’d had her home, her father and school snatched away from her, the man she believed loved her turned out to be a rat, and now her mother was slowly going mad and threatening to keep her in some kind of slavery.

  It seemed like hours that she lay there crying. The sharp stalks of the corn were digging in all over her, and ants kept crawling up her legs. Thirst and the lack of a dry handkerchief finally made her get up. She didn’t want to return to Franklin House, yet she knew she must.

  Staff Nurse Dodds was sorting out the post in the hall when she saw Charlie come back up the garden path. She had been making beds earlier when she’d heard Sylvia Weish’s outburst and the screaming which followed. It had taken both her and Nurse Wilson to subdue the woman, and her language had been appalling.

  She hadn’t grown to like Sylvia however hard she tried. None of the staff had a good word for her, yet this time, once they’d got the woman calmed down enough to drink a cup of tea and take a tranquillizer, her anger turned to pitiful tears, and she’d revealeda side of herself they hadn’t seen before. It seemed to the nurse that Sylvia’s real problem was a total inability to express her real emotions. She did love her daughter, she was also very worried that Charlie hadn’t got a real home and might drift into trouble, but instead of saying these things, she lashed out wildly and thoughtlessly.

  As Charlie approached the open front door, Staff Nurse Dodds saw her red-rimmed swollen eyes and instinctively knew exactly what she’d been doing for the last couple of hours. Her heart went out to Charlie, and to her mother.

  ‘I’m so glad you came back, dear,’ she said. ‘Your mother was very upset after you left, but I think she’s very sorry now.’

  Charlie sensed the nurse knew the root cause of the trouble. ‘I always intended to look after her. But how can I?’ she asked imploringly. ‘She’s as horrible to me as she is to all of you.’

  ‘No one will force you to take care of her,’ Staff Nurse Dodds said with deep sympathy, patting Charlie’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘You are too young for one thing. This flat she’s been offered will be got ready for her with her disability in mind, and she’ll get nursing and home support. If you can’t face going there with her, don’t do it. She’ll just have to learn to accept it.’

  ‘I’ll go and see her again,’ Charlie said with a sigh. ‘But if she’s nasty again, this time it really will be the last visit.’

  *

  Sylvia had been taken back to the bedroom she shared with two other women and put to bed. The curtains had been partially drawn, and as all the other patients were downstairs it was very peaceful.

  ‘Hullo, Mum,’ Charlie said tentatively. ‘I’m sorry. I had to come back because I was worried about you.’

  Sylvia was lying flat on her back. As Charlie approached her she lifted her head a little and gave a weak smile.

  Charlie felt a surge of relief. Her mother’s eyes were swollen from crying but it was clear the fight had gone out of her.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ Sylvia said in a croaky voice. ‘I didn’t mean what I said, darling. You know I love you really. I don’t know why I’m so mean sometimes. And I’m really proud of you for doing so well in the exams.’

  Charlie’s hurt faded. Sylvia had never been one for apologies, or saying she loved her, and to hear both made her glad she’d come back. She sat on the edge of the bed and took her mother’s hands in hers. ‘I love you too, Mum, for better or worse. I won’t run out on you, I promise.’

  Sylvia gave a deep sigh. ‘Your father said that to me once,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Well, I mean it,’ Charlie said stoutly, assuming this remark was caused by disbelief. ‘When did he say it to you?’

  ‘When I found out he was having an affair,’ she replied, her eyes mournful.

  Charlie’s heart quickened. Since the day Sylvia blurted out the story of her childhood and the stillborn baby, Charlie had never managed to get anything further out of her about the past. ‘He had an affair? Who with?’

  Sylvia closed her eyes as if to shut out a painful memory.

  ‘Mum?’ Charlie shook her hand gently. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘DeeDee.’

  The unlikely name came out like a pistol shot. The sheer force of it proved it was something Sylvia had bottled up for a very long time.

  ‘Who was she?’ Charlie probed gently.

  ‘I thought she was my friend. We worked together long before I met Jin. When he got his own club I got him to give her a job too.’

  Charlie could see the pain in her mother’s eyes. ‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘It’s better to tell me than keep it all inside you.’

  Sylvia sighed and reached out for her daughter’s hand. ‘She wasn’t just a passing friend, Charlie, we were as close as sisters. We had so many good times both before and after she came to work for Jin, we were making big money and everything seemed wonderful. When I stopped working because I was pregnant she took over all my jobs.’ She paused for a moment, looking bleakly at her daughter. ‘I never thought for one moment she’d get her hooks into my husband too.’

  Charlie understood that a woman was hardly likely to forget such betrayal, especially at such a vulnerable time in her life, but she did think it a bit odd that she should still be so bitter about it after all these years. She had to get to the bottom of it. ‘And that’s what Dad said? That he wouldn’t run out on you?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t say he would stop seeing DeeDee. Just that he loved me, for better or worse, and he wouldn’t run out on me. Funny you should use the exact same words, but then you are so like him.’

  Charlie was a little confused. ‘So are you saying he went on with the affair?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Sylvia sighed and her eyes looked stricken. ‘You were two when I found out about it, and he said that. Like a fool I thought that meant it really was over, and then of course we moved to Devon. We were so happy then, I managed to forgive if not forget. But the truth of the matter was that he wanted me out of London so he could carry on with her. He had two homes, one with me and you, and another one with her in London.’

  Charlie was astounded. ‘Are you telling me this went on from when I was a baby right up till he disappeared? Sixteen years!’

  Sylvia nodded. ‘More or less.’

  ‘And Dad knew that you knew?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, but her eyes dropped from Charlie’s. ‘Well no, not exactly. At first I used to gently hint that I knew he was still seeing her, but he always laughed it off. Later on I used to say sharper things about it and it always caused a row: He always said I was the only woman he’d ever loved. But he wou
ldn’t talk about it properly, he’d just throw something in a temper and walk away. I was afraid that if I kept on about it he might leave me.’

  Charlie nodded. This at least explained some of the rows she’d heard. ‘But you might have been mistaken. What proof did you have?’

  ‘DeeDee sent letters and cards to him occasionally. I used to steam them open. She phoned too, she’d pretend she had a wrong number if I answered, but I’d know her voice anywhere. It was low and husky. Not like anyone else’s.’

  ‘Did you show these letters to Dad, tell him about the calls.’

  ‘No,’ Sylvia replied, looking furtive. ‘I was too frightened to in case it forced his hand.’

  All at once Charlie began to see a fuller picture. This was almost certainly the cause of those black moods her mother had suffered from. She couldn’t imagine ever choosing to suffer in silence rather than risk losing a man, but then she and her mother had very different characters. Perhaps for a weak person who had suffered so much abuse as a young girl, half a husband, a beautiful home and financial security was better than gambling the lot by speaking out, and maybe risking losing everything.

  ‘Did you tell the police about her?’ she asked.

  Sylvia’s eyes opened very wide like a startled deer’s. ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not, Mum? Dad might be there with her now. Where was this other home?’

  ‘I never found that out.’ Sylvia turned her face towards Charlie and her eyes were beautiful, big, sad pools of blue, brimming with tears. ‘She never put an address on her letters. But he wouldn’t be there. He promised he would never run out on me.’

  Charlie felt a surge of anger at her mother’s inconsistency and stupidity. ‘But he has!’ she retorted. She wondered if she was losing her mind now. ‘He has run out on you, hasn’t he? Even if you don’t know her address, if this woman worked for Dad and had been seeing him all these years, the police might be able to find her and question her.’