Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

  On a warm summer’s day it was probably one of the most beautiful places in all England, a valley between steep rocky hills, with a sensational view of the sea crashing on to the rocks down in the cove. But today in the heavy rain Ivor could see no further than forty or fifty yards, and the footpath had turned to thick, glutinous mud.

  He felt the sea spray on his face even before he caught sight of the beach. The waves were mountainous, crashing over the mound of rocks in the centre of the cove. In high summer this was a bit of paradise, but today it looked forbidding.

  Ivor stood by the path going down to the beach for some few minutes, trying to gauge whether Charlie would have got this far. He thought not. If she had, she would surely have gone up the way he’d just come, if only to find shelter. And if his worst fears were realized and she’d run off seeking permanent oblivion from her troubles, she would surely have done it at the first high point. Not kept on walking without a coat.

  He set off up the steep rocky path back towards Salcombe, Minnie scampering up ahead of him. He wasn’t as fit now as he had been, and he found the going tough, especially in an oilskin coat. His breathing was laboured, his boots slid on mud, but he kept going, calling out Charlie’s name.

  He didn’t want to brood on pregnancy as a reason for her odd behaviour, he couldn’t believe fate would deal her that many dud cards.

  ‘Just keep her safe,’ he muttered, looking skywards. ‘Don’t you dare take this one from me too.’

  Charlie was dreaming. She was back at ‘Windways’, lying on the big settee in front of the fire, so comfortable she didn’t want to move when she heard her father calling her name. She didn’t even want to open her eyes.

  But he was so insistent. ‘Charlie,’ he called. ‘Charlie! Where are you? Answer me!’

  She opened her eyes, then shut them because of the rain. She didn’t want to feel cold, wet and the pain in her shoulder, she needed to get back to the fire. But the voice called out again, closer this time.

  ‘Charlie, answer me if you can hear me. Just call and I’ll find you.’

  ‘I’m in here, Daddy,’ she said sleepily. ‘Don’t bother me.’

  But she couldn’t get back to that comfort. She ached all over, she felt the cold acutely, and suddenly it was as if the mist around her parted and she remembered her father was missing.

  ‘Daddy?’ she called out. ‘Daddy, is that you?’

  She struggled to sit back up, but her hand was too cold now to hold the boulder and she slid a little way. Fright brought her to, and she remembered what had happened.

  ‘Help me!’ she screamed out, not knowing whether the voice she’d heard was reality, or just part of the dream. ‘Help me! I’m hurt.’

  A dog barked not far away, though she couldn’t see it.

  ‘Charlie, it’s me, Ivor!’ His familiar voice rang out loud and clear. ‘Call Minnie, she’ll find you. Keep calling. I’m coming.’

  She called Minnie again and again, focusing only on that she would soon be safe, then suddenly through the mist and rain she saw Minnie haring joyously towards her, tail wagging, barking furiously.

  ‘Oh Minnie,’ she exclaimed as the dog came over to her. As if sensing Charlie was hurt, she slowed right down and crept forward to lick Charlie’s face tentatively.

  ‘Good girl,’ Charlie said, patting her head. ‘Go get Ivor, show him where I am.’

  Minnie ran off, disappearing into the mist, barking fit to bust. A few minutes later Charlie suddenly saw Ivor coming down over the hill to where she lay.

  Nothing and no one in her whole life had looked as good or as colourful as he did: his yellow oilskin and sou-wester, the bushy red beard and his face purple with exertion, framed by a leaden sky.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart! Thank heavens I’ve found you,’ he exclaimed. ‘How bad are you hurt?’

  ‘My shoulder,’ she said weakly. ‘But everything hurts.’

  She learned a great deal more about Ivor’s strengths in those next few moments. He was as capable as a doctor, running his hands over her arms and legs with clear medical knowledge. He was tender and fatherly, cutting off her sweater with a knife to save hurting her arm more, then wrapping her in her coat, he made a sling for her arm with a neckerchief.

  After tucking the blanket round her, he gave her hot, sweet tea. Nothing had ever tasted so good, and she gulped it down eagerly.

  ‘I got Beryl to call the police,’ he said. ‘So they should turn up soon, but do you think you could walk at least part of the way?’

  She agreed to try and Ivor pointed out that just a few yards down from where they were was another rough path which also led back to the cove. ‘Shuffle down on your bottom,’ he said. ‘I’ll tie the rope around your middle and stay here to hold it till you reach the path. From there on I can probably carry you if you can’t manage any further.’

  It was just as well Ivor had her tied securely as she slid most of the way. But the pain was bearable now he was with her.

  Their progress towards the cove was very slow. Charlie could walk but she was very unsteady, and Ivor held her round the waist to support her. As they approached the small beach, two policemen appeared through the rain, and after a hurried confab with Ivor, the pair of them joined hands and made a sort of seat to carry her up over the hill.

  *

  Ivor sat beside Charlie’s bed in a curtained cubicle of Dartmouth Hospital. Nurses had stripped off her wet clothes, put her in a gown and tucked her under several blankets until the doctor finished with his previous patient.

  Her hair was nearly dry now but she was very pale and still cold. The silence she’d sunk into since her admission was very worrying.

  Ivor had never seen anyone looking so woebegone as she did when he found her. Her face, hair and clothes were smeared with mud, her dark eyes looked haunted, and when he pulled her jumper off it was heavy with rain-water. Yet over and above the harrowing ordeal she’d been through, and the pain she was in, he sensed something more. Whether that was because she’d gone out with suicide on her mind, he couldn’t tell. But he knew he had to get her to open up now, because if she didn’t talk about what was troubling her, next time there might be no rescue.

  ‘Charlie, I don’t want to embarrass you, but I have to ask something. Are you pregnant?’ He took her hands in his and looked deep into her eyes, daring her to lie to him. ‘You might think it’s none of my business, but if you are, we have to tell the doctor so he can check the baby is still okay.’

  Charlie was embarrassed. She turned her head away from him and began to cry. Getting her period two weeks ago was the only luck she’d had in months.

  Ivor let her cry for a few moments, gently stroking back her hair from her face. ‘Are you? Because if you are I’ll help you.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Thank goodness. I wouldn’t want to bring that creep’s baby into the world.’

  The vitriolic way she spoke was evidence of her deep hurt. Ivor wished he’d probed more deeply that day when she came back from Weymouth, some things were better brought out into the open. ‘Well, that’s one worry less,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘Is this an appropriate time to ask what really happened between you?’

  She turned her face back to him, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘He abandoned me on the quay at Weymouth and sailed off,’ she whispered. ‘It hurt so much, Ivor. He didn’t even have the guts to say goodbye.’

  ‘Was it that which prompted the early morning walk?’ Ivor asked. ‘Or that chap Wyatt upsetting you yesterday?’

  ‘I don’t really know. A bit of everything I guess,’ she said.

  Ivor sighed. He’d lost more hours than he cared to remember in the weeks after Sarah and Kim were killed. But his problem had been grief, and agony though it was, it ran its course. Charlie had so many different things to cope with – a broken heart, missing father, crippled mother and any freedom of choice snatched from her.

  ‘Don’t you ever run off alone like that again
if you are hurting or frightened,’ he said reprovingly. ‘The cliffs are dangerous places even on a warm sunny day. In rain they are treacherous. If you ever feel like that again, you come to me.’

  ‘I didn’t know what I was doing,’ she cried, rubbing at her eyes like a small child. ‘That was what scared me the most, Ivor. I think I just flipped, a bit like Mum does.’

  There was nothing more Ivor could say. She was safe now. She’d even learned that the human mind can only take so much. And she’d proved she could take more than most.

  An x-ray later proved no bones were broken. Charlie’s shoulder was dislocated and she was badly bruised, but because she was in shock and suffering from hypothermia, the doctor insisted she stay in hospital overnight.

  Ten days later, in Beryl’s car, Ivor drove Charlie over to Mayflower Close. After she’d seen the flat he was taking her on to Paignton to Miss Fellows, her headmistress.

  Charlie had gone down with a very bad cold soon after she’d left hospital. This, coupled with her injured shoulder and low state of mind, had forced her to stay in bed. Yet despite this, the Receiver’s office had still callously insisted on the Weishes’ belongings being taken out of ‘Windways’ on the original date they’d set. Determined that Charlie was to have no further anxiety, Ivor and Beryl had overseen the move without her.

  As Charlie opened the front door of the flat she braced herself for piles of boxes and furniture piled up high. But as she walked in and saw the living room she gasped in astonishment.

  The carpet was fitted, curtains were hung, even the furniture was arranged with a rug in front of the gas fire and a table lamp on a low bookcase. She could hardly believe her eyes. Apart from a stack of boxes up by the back window, the room was ready to live in.

  ‘You did all this?’ She looked about in absolute wonder. ‘Oh Ivor, you’re wonderful.’

  ‘Beryl masterminded it, I was just the labourer,’ he said, looking at his feet in embarrassment. Charlie rushed into each of the bedrooms. The beds were made, clothes hung up in the wardrobes, even her stereo was fixed into a wall unit. In the kitchen the refrigerator and cupboards were stocked with food and china. All the flat needed was for her to hang pictures and place a few ornaments.

  ‘If it had been left to me, the kitchen utensils would be in the bathroom, and the beds in the living room,’ Ivor called out from the living room. ‘Beryl said you’ll need to shorten the curtains. She’ll sew them if you can’t do it. And of course you’ll want to rearrange the furniture to suit yourselves.’

  ‘You were much more than a labourer!’ Charlie came back into the room, sniffing and dabbing at her eyes. The carpets all looked as if they’d been bought for the rooms, he’d fixed up a mirrored cabinet on the bathroom wall and a tool rack in the kitchen. It looked like a real home; if they were to draw the curtains, Charlie could at a pinch pretend she was back at ‘Windways’. ‘It’s such a lovely surprise. How can I ever thank you?’

  Ivor wanted to hug her, but she still had a sling on her arm and she was badly bruised. ‘By being happy here, sweetheart. Both Beryl and I were very glad to do it for you – it’s our way of showing how much we care.’

  Charlie thought they’d both already proved that by their concern when she went missing and the loving care they’d given her since.

  She had turned a corner now, thanks to that care. These last few days of rest and peace had brought it home to her that she must accept what she couldn’t change. Today she was going in to see when she could start back at school; in a few days’ time her mother would come home.

  Maybe the accident was a good thing. Sylvia had said during a recent telephone conversation that it had jolted her into thinking more positively. Perhaps she’d thought on what might have happened, because she now seemed to be more concerned about Charlie than herself. Just yesterday afternoon she’d said she was determined to try to walk, and she was looking forward to being together with her daughter again.

  ‘It’s a new start for both of you,’ Ivor said, making her sit down while he put the kettle on. He thought she was still looking too pale. ‘In my view tragedy can often be the making of people.’

  If anyone else had said such a thing to Charlie she might have snapped at them. But Ivor spoke from experience, so she said nothing.

  She looked about the room and felt a bubble of happiness growing inside her. It was just a very ordinary flat, as far removed from ‘Windways’ as it was possible to be, but maybe that was a good thing. She and her mother had to be ordinary people now.

  It wasn’t going to be easy looking after her mother and the flat and going to school. Six months ago she wouldn’t even have known how to put a light bulb in, but now was her chance to show Ivor and Beryl just how much she’d learned from them.

  ‘I’m determined to make it work,’ she said firmly. ‘You just wait and see what I can do when I make my mind up!’

  Ivor smiled, but his heart was a little heavy. He had every faith in Charlie, but he wasn’t so sure her mother was as deeply committed. He hoped he would be proved wrong.

  Chapter Eight

  Charlie staggered into the tiny hall with two large bags of shopping, pushed the door shut behind her with one foot, put the bags down, kicked off her wet shoes and then removed her dripping raincoat.

  It was ten o’clock at night, March 1971, and she and Sylvia had been living in Mayflower Close for six months. Charlie had left home before eight that morning, bought the shopping after school, then gone straight to the Royal Castle Hotel on the harbour where she had a part-time job in the kitchens. She’d missed the bus and she’d had to walk all the way home up a steep hill in heavy rain carrying the shopping. She was exhausted.

  The television was blaring out, and Charlie took a deep breath before opening the door to the living room. She knew exactly what to expect, an overheated room full of cigarette smoke, the remains of a Meals on Wheels dinner still sitting on the coffee table and her mother slumped sullenly in front of the television.

  Although Charlie had embarked on living with her mother again with hope and determination that they would have a happy life together, Sylvia hadn’t shared her commitment. She showed no appreciation for anything Charlie did for her. She grumbled incessantly and made no attempt to do anything for herself. Last month it had been Charlie’s seventeenth birthday. Sylvia hadn’t even remembered. The only greeting that morning had been a complaint that Charlie had forgotten to pick up her prescription for sleeping pills.

  ‘Hullo, Mum.’ Charlie forced herself to smile as she humped the shopping in. Everything was exactly as she expected, the mess, heat and smoke. ‘Sorry I’m late, I missed the bus.’

  Sylvia had given up on her appearance soon after she settled into her new home. Charlie’s memory of painted nails, carefully set hair and makeup was so distant nowadays that she rarely even tried to persuade Sylvia to make an effort any more.

  Sylvia tied her blonde hair back with an elastic band, and her skin was yellowy and puckered through lack of fresh air and too many cigarettes. As she ate much more now she had put on weight too, and she always wore baggy trousers to hide the scars on her knees. She looked old and slovenly.

  She didn’t even turn her head towards her daughter, just kept her eyes firmly on the television. ‘There wasn’t any bread left and I couldn’t reach the crackers,’ she said in a dull monotone.

  Charlie bit her tongue. She had become a master at this for it was the only way to avoid ugly scenes. ‘I’ve got some now,’ she said, going on through to the kitchen. ‘Would you like a sandwich? I bought some ham too.’

  ‘I’m not hungry any more. Did you get my cigarettes?’

  ‘Do I ever forget them?’ Charlie replied. She pulled them out of one of the bags and took them over to her mother. ‘But you must cut down, Mum, we can’t afford so many in a week. Since this decimalization came in they are putting pennies on everything, thinking we don’t notice. This week’s shopping was over fifty pence more than it used to be.
That’s ten shillings in old money.’

  Sylvia got through over forty cigarettes a day now. Back at ‘Windways’ she had limited herself to about twenty, and never smoked in her bedroom. But now Charlie often woke in the middle of the night to hear her mother coughing and she’d be sitting up in bed with a cigarette. Charlie hated it, her own clothes and hair stank of them, the walls and ceiling were turning brown, and she was worried in case her mother accidentally started a fire.

  ‘It’s the only pleasure I get, surely you aren’t going to deny me that now?’ Sylvia whined.

  Charlie didn’t bother to reply and just got on with unpacking the shopping. If she allowed herself to be drawn into an argument she’d never get to bed tonight.

  The kitchen was messy, but then it always was. Sylvia could walk a little now with the aid of a walking frame, so she could go to the toilet alone, and take a bath just with help getting in. In fact there was nothing to stop her leading a fairly normal life, as all the doors were wide enough for her to get about in her wheelchair if her legs grew tired. But although she made tea and snacks for herself during the day, she never attempted jobs like washing up or wiping the work surfaces. She treated Charlie as if she was a servant.

  One day a week she was collected in an ambulance and taken to the hospital for physiotherapy, but even though she was always urged to walk and stand more, she ignored the advice. Charlie suspected that if she didn’t leave her any cigarettes she could make it to the shop around the corner without too much difficulty. But she hadn’t found the courage to be that ruthless yet.

  ‘I think I will have a sandwich after all,’ Sylvia called out, after Charlie had tidied up the kitchen. ‘And a cup of coffee.’

  Charlie gritted her teeth. It was tempting to tell her to make it herself, but she’d just make another mess.

  She took it into her mother a few minutes later. ‘I’m going to my room to do my homework,’ she said. ‘Is there anything else you need before I settle down?’