by Mark Edwards
‘Don’t forget Sasha’s coming round tonight,’ I said as she left.
She rolled her eyes. ‘How could I?’
She texted me a dozen times during the morning, telling me lots of filthy things she wanted to do to me.
Shortly after lunch, the doorbell rang. Fortunately, I had remembered that Kristi was due and was up and dressed. I buzzed the door and listened as footsteps ascended the stairs.
A middle-aged woman appeared on the landing. She had frizzy hair and a face that looked like it should have been a warning picture on a cigarette packet. Wheezing, she approached me and said, ‘I cleaner.’ She handed me a card bearing the logo of the cleaning agency.
‘Where’s Kristi?’ I said, as she peered over my shoulder into flat.
She shrugged and scowled.
I led her into the flat and showed her where the cleaning stuff was. She couldn’t take her eyes off my crutches.
‘So . . . is Kristi on holiday or something?’
The woman, whose name was Maria, stared blankly at me. ‘Sorry. English, I . . .’
I was surprised by how disappointed I felt that Kristi appeared to have been replaced. Perhaps she was on holiday, but it seemed unlikely. I remembered the bruises she’d had on her face the week before. What if something had happened to her? Unable to rest, I needed to find out.
I called the agency and, after being put on hold for an interminable length of time, listening to their hold music (R. Kelly’s ‘Clean This House’), I eventually got through to a man who sounded like he’d just heard that his dog had died.
‘Kristi’s not with us anymore.’
‘Oh. She’s left?’
A long pause. ‘I’m not allowed to give out personal information about our staff.’
‘I wasn’t asking for personal information. I just wanted to check if she would be coming back.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Sumner, but like I said, she isn’t able to work at the moment.’
Wasn’t able?
‘Maria is one of our most experienced cleaners. I’m sure she’ll do a great job for you. But if for any reason you’re dissatisfied please get in touch.’
I hung up and listened to Maria clean my bathroom. I felt glum. I’d liked Kristi, though maybe if I was honest with myself it was only because she was attractive and mysterious. She had been terrible at her job.
Maria came into the room, carrying a bin bag full of rubbish she’d collected from around the flat, a business-like expression on her face. I could read her mind: she was thinking I was a dirty boy, a pig who lived among his own mess. I flushed with shame because, if she was thinking that, she was right. Since Charlie had come into my life I’d turned into a slob.
By the time Maria had left, leaving the flat looking and smelling better than it had in months – surfaces gleaming, carpet spotless, rubbish removed and the musty smell I hadn’t even noticed banished from the air – I’d stopped worrying about my old cleaner.
Sixteen
When I was a kid we had a plump and loveable tabby cat named Claude, whom Tilly would carry around like a baby, dressing him in doll’s clothes, while I let him sleep on my bed and fed him pieces of contraband ham from the fridge. When Claude was getting on a bit, Tilly started pestering for a kitten. Mum and Dad compromised and got a rescue cat, a year-old neutered tom whom we called Speedy. When we introduced Speedy to Claude, the old cat hissed, arched his back and pissed on the carpet while the newcomer trembled under a chair.
When Sasha walked into the living room, where Charlie waited, hovering awkwardly by the sofa, it reminded me of that terrible introduction. They didn’t hiss or spit or soil the rug. They were civil, smiling and shaking hands in that soft way that girls do. But the atmosphere shifted in the same way, like a disturbance in the universe, stress fissures in the fabric of the air. I was tempted to hit the abort button, get Sasha out of there, but I badly wanted them to like each other, to get along.
I was sure alcohol would help.
‘Do you want wine, Sasha? White or red? Here you go.’ I hobbled over, crutch under one armpit, bottle in my free hand. ‘Charlie got this from a wine merchant near the hospital, didn’t you?’
Charlie made a ‘no big deal’ face and Sasha pulled an ‘ooh, la-di-da’ expression. The two of them exchanged chit-chat for a few minutes, about the snow, my accident – ‘He’s such a klutz,’ said Sasha – and some other stuff that I can’t remember because I was too busy wracking my brains for a topic they could bond over. They were both into music, films, books, though Charlie’s tastes were at the darker end of the spectrum, more cerebral, difficult stuff that Sasha would have called pretentious.
‘Andrew tells me you’re an artist,’ Sasha said, sitting stiffly on the edge of the sofa. She had come straight from work and was dishevelled, her hair going curly from the damp, make-up faded, a grease stain on her top. Still, this was how Sasha usually looked; it was part of her charm.
Charlie, by contrast, had just spent an hour in the bathroom and looked immaculate in a soft green dress with salon-fresh hair. I had seen Sasha flick her eyes up and down Charlie’s body in a judgmental way when she came in to the flat. I didn’t like that look; it wasn’t the kind of thing Sasha usually did, and it made me feel protective of Charlie.
‘I don’t even know if I call myself an artist anymore,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s been so long since I painted anything.’
‘What a shame.’
‘I simply don’t get time anymore.’
Sasha looked at me. ‘Yes. So I hear.’
Charlie affected ignorance of the meaning behind Sasha’s words. ‘It’s mainly because of work. It takes up all my energy, doesn’t leave much time to be creative.’
‘Sucks having to work for a living, doesn’t it?’
Charlie smiled. ‘Yes, it really does.’
‘And Andy here—’ She never usually called me Andy. ‘Andy is going to be joining us work drones soon.’
‘Hmm.’ Charlie put her hand on my arm. ‘I think he’s crazy.’
Sasha furrowed her brow. ‘Really? It’s a great opportunity.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘As soon as I’m off these bloody crutches . . .’
‘You need to take it easy,’ Charlie said, rubbing my arm. ‘You don’t want to rush things and aggravate the injury.’
‘Oh, he’ll be fine,’ Sasha said. ‘He’s a typical bloke, that’s all. Have you seen him with a cold yet?’
Charlie shook her head.
‘You wait. You’d think he was dying from Ebola. You should have seen him when he had his eye thing. I know it was horrible, but I’ve seen more stoic toddlers.’
‘Hey, that’s a bit unfair,’ I said.
‘I think he’s really brave,’ Charlie said. Every time she spoke to or about me, she touched me, stroking my back, squeezing my elbow. She looked at me lovingly. ‘It can’t simply be kissed better, though I’ve tried.’
Inside her head, I knew Sasha would be making vomiting noises.
‘Hey,’ Sasha said. ‘Remember that time at uni when we went on that country ramble with the bloody fell-walking club – you thought it would be fun to join but they were such a bunch of humourless wankers – and you didn’t have any proper walking boots so wore your trainers and you spent the next week moaning about your blister?’
‘Did I?’ I had a vague memory of this.
‘Yeah, you were a nightmare. Then there was that time we took E and the next day you were convinced you were going to die? You drank pints and pints of water because you’d seen something on the news about a girl who died of dehydration and you were sure you were having some sort of delayed reaction.’
‘You make me sound like a right hypochondriac.’
‘Then there was that time we—’
‘Excuse me, but I need to sort out dinner,’ Charlie said, knockin
g back her wine. Sasha had finished hers too and I refilled both their glasses. I was so woozy from the codeine that I was taking it easy, had had only a couple of sips of mine.
While Charlie prepared dinner – something she had insisted she wanted to do – I sat and chatted to Sasha.
‘How’s everything going?’
‘Hmm?’ Sasha had her eyes on Charlie, whose back was to us. I wanted to tell Sasha to stop being so hostile. What was it about Charlie that she didn’t like? So far, Charlie had been polite and completely inoffensive, even if she’d been a bit OTT with the touching and comments about kissing it better. Sasha was being unreasonable. She had decided she wasn’t going to like my girlfriend before she’d even met her. She had to accept this was the woman I loved.
But I couldn’t say all this – any of it – with Charlie in the room.
‘Any news about Lance or Mae?’ I asked.
Sasha tore her eyes away from Charlie’s back. ‘Oh God, yes. I had an encounter with him at work.’ She shivered. ‘I was in the stationery cupboard, getting a new notebook, and he came in.’
‘What happened?’
She took a deep breath. There was a lull in the music and Sasha lowered her voice, talking almost in a whisper. ‘He looked horrified to see me, tried to completely frigging ignore me. But I wasn’t having that, I was so angry, like I’d been repressing it all for ages and suddenly, there he was and it all came bubbling up.’
I waited while she swallowed more wine.
‘I shut the door – you should have seen his face – and told him to tell his bitch of a wife to stop sending me messages, that if I got one more text or email from her I was going to have him up for sexual harassment. I mean, older, rich man, impressionable young woman made to believe that if she didn’t respond to his advances she’d be fired . . . I’d definitely have a case.’
‘Fucking hell,’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ Charlie said. She was standing over us. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear. I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘What?’ Sasha said, her mouth staying open.
‘It will be your reputation that suffers if you do that. A friend of mine in Manchester went through the same thing. The guy ended up looking like a hero, everyone thinking he was a big stud, his wife standing by him, and the girl was made to look like an idiot. This boss of yours sounds like a disgusting creep, but perhaps you should put it down to experience and move on.’
Sasha blinked at Charlie like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I expected an outburst, but she said, ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but it’s none of your business.’
‘I know. I just wouldn’t want you to make a mistake.’
‘It does sound like it would end badly,’ I said, trying to work out how quickly I could end this conversation. ‘Even though he would deserve it. What did he say, anyway?’
‘He said that I should stop making threats. Then he walked out.’
Charlie had gone back over to the kitchen.
‘Maybe you should look for another job,’ I said.
Sasha shook her head vehemently. ‘No way. Why should I be the one who loses out? I’m lucky it’s so hard to get rid of employees in this country. He knows he can’t fire me without ending up in court.’
Over dinner – which was excellent as always; even Sasha admitted as much – things calmed down. We talked about safe topics: our favourite box sets, the redevelopments in Herne Hill, the price of property in London.
We talked about a film we’d all watched recently, in which a woman murdered her husband and covered it up, getting away with it in the end.
‘The perfect murder,’ Charlie said. ‘What would you do, Sasha, if you wanted to murder someone? Like your boss, for example.’
Sasha grinned. ‘Hmm . . . I don’t know. I think you’d have to make it look like a suicide. Get them to write a note at knife-point.’
‘I reckon if you wanted to murder someone, the best way to do it would be to make it look like a drug overdose,’ Charlie said. ‘Death by misadventure.’
‘You two!’ I said. ‘You’re terrible.’
As I washed up, Charlie and Sasha had a civil, though stilted, conversation about Breaking Bad. They were both one glass short of drunk and Sasha seemed a lot more relaxed than she had been. Pretty soon, she announced that she needed to go. We called a taxi, because I didn’t want her to walk home on her own in the dark.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ Charlie said, moving in for a hug, after the taxi arrived.
Sasha held back for a moment before accepting the awkward embrace.
‘I’m sure we’ll see each other soon,’ she said.
I saw Sasha out. At the front door of my flat, at the top of the stairs that I couldn’t get down without extreme difficulty, she said, ‘You really love her, don’t you?’
I was taken aback. ‘Yes. I think she’s amazing.’
Sasha looked like I’d just told her I was moving to the other side of the world.
‘She’s too good to be true,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ I had said these words about Charlie myself, but I didn’t believe it anymore.
Sasha frowned. ‘I don’t know. There’s something not right about her.’
‘Your taxi’s waiting.’
‘Don’t hate me for saying it,’ she said.
‘I don’t. Come on, you’re drunk. I’ll call you.’
I watched her go down the stairs, trying to keep my anger locked down. When I went back inside, Charlie said, ‘I told you.’
I wished I could tell her she was wrong but all I could do was say, ‘I’m sorry. She’s not normally like that.’
Charlie walked over to me, balancing with one crutch, and said, ‘Do you think I did something wrong?’
‘No, not at all. You were lovely, as always.’
She kissed me. ‘You’re lovely.’
The peck on the lips turned into a longer kiss, with me leaning against the wall. When Charlie broke away she was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling.
‘Let’s go to bed.’
In the bedroom, where she had already lighted the candles, she pulled her dress up over her head while I sat on the bed and watched, unbuttoning my shirt. She was wearing red underwear, her milky skin flickering in the candlelight. She straddled me and ran her hands over my chest, kissing me again as she unbuckled my belt. Carefully, she pulled my jeans off and, kneeling on the floor, took me in her mouth, her tongue and lips so warm, gripping the base of my cock in one hand, stroking my balls with the other.
I closed my eyes, lost in bliss. She crawled onto the bed and unclipped her bra, pulling me up so I could lick her nipples, flicking my tongue across them rapidly in the way she liked.
‘I need to fuck you,’ she said, unrolling a condom onto me, positioning herself over me and guiding me into her. She rocked and rotated her hips, increasing the pace, stroking her own breasts then running her nails across my chest, panting hard, coming quickly.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, seeing my expression.
‘I can’t come,’ I whispered. ‘It’s the codeine. It numbs me.’ My penis slipped out of her.
She looked thoughtful, then reached over into the drawer and took out the little bottled of jasmine-scented massage oil, squirting some onto her breasts, rubbing it in, then turning her attention to me. She pulled off the condom and chucked it aside. Her hands were warm too, and gripped me firmly, pumping my slippery cock, fast and slow. But still I couldn’t come.
She sat up, looked like she was contemplating her next move.
Over the next hour, she tried everything. She whispered filthy words into my ear. She moved into every position I could imagine and many I couldn’t. She varied the speed and rhythm. I tried to tell her to leave it, that I didn’t need to come, that I was fine. But she wouldn’t giv
e in. Finally, after going down on me for a long time, while I lay there half in ecstasy, half in maddened frustration, all mixed up with guilt and admiration, Charlie made me come.
She lay panting on the bed beside me, her body drenched with sweat like she’d just run a marathon.
‘I love you, Charlie.’
She got up from the bed and stood looking down at me, drinking from a glass of water, her whole body glistening. Her expression was serious as she leant towards me.
‘I love you the most,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’
Seventeen
When I woke up the next morning Charlie had already gone to work, leaving a note in her neat handwriting next to the bed.
You were completely zonked out and I didn’t want to disturb you. You look so sweet and innocent when you’re asleep . . .
Last night was intensely good.
I’ll call you at lunchtime.
Love you forever.
C xxxxxxxxxx
I lay in bed for a while, thinking about the day ahead. I had some work to do for Victor, some additional pages for the Wowcom micro-site we were now working on. As Wowcom were potentially Victor’s biggest client, he was paying particularly close attention to my work, which added some pressure. But apart from that the day stretched out emptily. I was already looking forward to the evening and Charlie coming round.
My thoughts turned to Sasha, and the way she had acted around Charlie. It was a side of her I’d not seen before. She and Harriet got on really well and were still in touch. But the way she had behaved last night, and the stuff she had said about Charlie on the doorstep, made me not want to talk to her, not until I was less angry. I decided I’d give it a few days and then call her. I wasn’t sure what I would do if she didn’t warm to Charlie. Could I still be friends with her if she hated my girlfriend?
I dozed off and when I woke my knee was throbbing. My packet of codeine was in the bedside drawer and, to my horror, when I opened it I found I only had three left. Stupidly, I shook the packet. Three left? I was sure there were around ten, enough to get me through a couple more days. This meant I would run out before the end of the day. My skin prickled with anxiety.
