Charlie and Pearl

by Robinson, Tammy

  I was consumed with him, there’s no other word for it. And he seemed the same with me. He got jealous if another guy checked me out, wanted to pin down all my plans days in advance to make sure he had the correct amount of attention he felt he deserved. He had no worries there though. I wanted to spend every waking minute with him. I called, text, emailed him every hour from work. I couldn’t eat I was that lovesick. I lost weight, cut my hair off because he thought long and curly was too ‘young’ for me. We went shopping and he picked out gorgeous clothes for me, clothes I would never have considered. Dresses, tailored trousers, Heels even, for the girl who previously lived in jandals. He taught me to like red wine, choose elegant salads rather than fries at restaurants.

  You can already see what’s coming right?

  He backed away so fast I didn’t understand what had happened until a friend sat me down and told me he’d been seen in town with someone else.

  I begged, I pleaded.

  He resisted.

  “We’re not good for each other,” he told me, “We’re too intense. It’s not how love is meant to be”.

  I disagreed. It was exactly how I thought love should be, but he wouldn’t hear it.

  “We moved too fast” he said.

  How could I argue with that when even I knew it was true?

  I was heartbroken, sick with it.

  And then I was sick with something else.

  The stick I peed on came out with a big pink +. So did the next one. There was no mistaking it.

  He would pay his share, he said, but he didn’t want us to get back together.

  CHARLIE

  On the Sunday afternoon I could take it no longer, I drove out to her place. No flowers or chocolates, but I did take a bottle of wine that the guy at the liquor shop told me was a ‘particularly nice drop’ with smooth characteristics and velvety undertones.

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  I drove back and forth past her driveway three times before telling myself to grow a pair and parking on the verge.

  The lawns were long, the grass thick and wet in places. Like a lot of these holiday homes the gardens were sparse, not many flowers, just hard wearing, low maintenance tussock plants. I thought, perhaps I should offer to mow the lawns for her? Good opportunity for an opening for another visit.

  Walking round the side of the house I saw that the ranch slider that faced out to sea was wide open, there was a book and an empty glass of water on the outside table, but no sign of her. The view was a knock out. I could see right out to the islands, including White Island, its plume of volcanic steam stark white against the blue of the sky. A large container ship was splayed against the horizon, on its way to Tauranga to unload its cargo. Despite living in a coastal town, it was moments like this that made me realise how little I took the time to appreciate the view on my doorstep.

  Climbing the deck, I knocked on the open door, waited a couple of minutes then stepped inside, telling myself that my concerns for her safety (she had been quite pale and weak looking the other day) validated any crime I might be committing.

  Dishes were piled high in the kitchen and clothes were draped over chairs and lying around on the lounge floor, like she’d simply dropped them where she took them off. She was messy. I’m not a particularly fastidious kind of guy, but my mother had raised me to at least pick up after myself.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Pearl?” I called out.

  There was no answer.

  I really didn’t want to go looking down the hall into bedrooms and definitely not the bathroom, what if I walked in on her naked in the bath? Then for sure I’d be committing some kind of criminal act!

  I decided I’d wait on the deck for awhile and had been sitting there for about 20 minutes, just starting to wonder if maybe I should check the bedroom after all when I noticed a figure walking my way along the beach, the foam from the waves bubbling around her knees. I could tell it was her. Skinny even from here, her dark hair blowing loose around her shoulders, arms hugging her chest like she was cold.

  Any doubts I’d had vanished, seeing her I still felt the same way, in my chest and, because I had no control over it, my groin. Before she noticed me I half turned and quickly adjusted myself a little, I didn’t want my feelings to be that obvious.

  She was almost at the top of the stairs before she saw me, and then she screamed a little and jumped backwards.

  “Sorry!” I reached out to steady her. “I didn’t mean to give you a fright, just wanted to stop by and check in on you, make sure you’re ok”. But as I said it I realised she was crying, there were salty tear tracks staining her cheeks and she turned her head and wiped them away on her arm.

  “I’m fine!” she said, and sniffed loudly.

  “Ok” I wasn’t going to argue even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary.

  That’s when I ran out of conversation. I didn’t want to talk about the weather, or ask inane questions like how her stay was going, I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her everything was going to be alright because I was here to look after her, if she’d let me.

  To hell with it, I opened my mouth to tell her so but then her arms were around my neck and her hips were pressed against mine and she was kissing me, and after that there was no need for conversation at all.

  PEARL

  I couldn’t think of another way to stop him asking questions.

  I’d been for a long walk along the beach, my feet in the water, dodging the odd jellyfish and all I could think about was the time Adam and I flew to Queensland for a long weekend. He surprised me with the tickets; picking me up from work and instead of driving home we just drove straight to the airport and got on the plane.

  It was the most spontaneous, wildest thing I’d ever done. We spent most of the weekend in our hotel room, making love, and the rest on the beach, sunbathing and swimming. It was glorious, the perfect holiday.

  This beach couldn’t be more different, the sand darker, the water colder and pipi shells littering the shore. But a beach is a beach and the memories from that other one wouldn’t leave me alone.

  So I didn’t see him through my tears until I almost walked into him. He was obviously nervous, his eyes too bright and a huge smile plastered across his face, but standing with a brave, forced confidence, rubbing his hands together as if he didn’t know where to put them. He asked me if I was ok and my answer came out loud and piercing, like the cry of a seagull.

  And you know what, he looked at me with something that looked like pity but which may have been sadness, and I couldn’t handle that look. That’s the look I kept getting from everyone back home, everyone who knew about Adam and I, and what happened with the baby. I was sick to death of that look.

  So I kissed him.

  I stood on my tip toes, shut my eyes and I kissed him.

  CHARLIE

  She tasted of salt.

  I didn’t want it to ever end.

  PEARL

  His breath was a little stale, but as far as kisses go it wasn’t too bad.

  When I let him go and stepped back he just looked at me, an amazed, excited look like I was a wrapped up present he’d just found underneath his tree Christmas morning.

  “See....I’m fine” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Yes! You certainly are!” his voice had gone up an octave like a prepubescent boy.

  He smiled his smile again; only this time it had a hint of anticipation.

  CHARLIE

  Here’s some more clichés for you....I’m over the moon, Singing in the rain, Walking on cloud nine!

  I’m happy, in other words.

  Happy, happy, happy, happy! With a capital H.

  My feet feel like they’ve barely touched the ground since we kissed.

  Of course, what happened afterwards wasn’t ideal. Instead of inviting me in and ravishing me, as I’d rather hoped, she looked down at the deck, told me she was tired and politely asked me to lea
ve.

  Still, it’s progress.

  I had to confide in someone. “She’s like the sun Pete”, I told him; “she lights up my world and makes me feel all warm inside. Her face is like...well it’s....you know that woman and the ships? Ha! That woman was nothing compared to my Pearl. She’s just....gorgeous” I sighed.

  Pete was happy for me, pinched my cheeks hard and breathed in my face and told me to “jolly well make sure you hang on to her boy”. Later, he showed me a black and white picture of a beautiful young woman and told me it was his one true love, Ava, and that they’d been cruelly torn apart by the trials and ravishes of war, separated by oceans, destined to never see each other again but always to live in hope. He’d given her a lock of his hair and in return, he said, she gave him her shoe, a slipper, and it was one of his most treasured possessions.

  A moving story, but I knew for a fact that he’d cut the picture out of a book on 1920’s actresses because the book was lying on the table out back, open at the page with the big hole cut out of, the scissors beside it. The slipper part, well I could only guess he’d got his stories crossed with Cinderella somehow.

  No harm done though. No need to call in the men in the white coats with the straight jacket just yet.

  I hoped Pearl would come in and see me. Every day I took extra effort picking out what to wear, ok so I didn’t have a lot to choose from; my wardrobe consisting of jeans and T-shirts, but I did at least make sure I wore clean ones. Love, for that’s the only explanation for this feeling I felt, had dulled my appetite a little. I hadn’t eaten takeaways in weeks and my skin was looking all the better for it, my clothes a little looser. I also used the Clearasil scrub mum got me religiously every night and every morning

  Did I mention I live with my mum? She’s a great mum, the best really. It’s been just her and I forever, my dad sailing away on a fishing trip shortly before I made my arrival into this world, and being lost at sea in a terrible storm. Ok, so that might be a touch dramatic, and ok so it might have been his car rather than a boat that he hit the horizon in, and he wasn’t lost per say, he just went away and chose never to come back.

  I made up a million different versions when I was a kid and people asked me where my dad was. They usually received a variation on one of the following stories: Lost at sea, a member of the secret service that was so secret he wasn’t allowed to see even us. My father was a Rock star like Axl Rose (I may have even implied Axl Rose) that my mum had an affair with, or he was an astronaut who had become trapped in a time/space continuum, (even though I didn’t then and still have no idea what a space continuum is).

  Mum works at the mill I mentioned earlier, in the office doing the payroll and stuff. She doesn’t like going to the pub so much because the guys are always querying their hours and sick pay after a few beers and arguing that yes, they did so have five grandmothers who all died in the last year and whose week long Tangis/funerals they had to attend. She deals with enough of that at work.

  She’s sacrificed a lot for me over the years. Money, Time, relationships, her body (the last one she likes to point out when I make fun of her jumping to Zumba in front of the TV – “You’re the reason my stomach sits on my knees and my boobs look like socks full of sand!”). I told Mike once and he said that if his mum ever mentioned her breasts to him he would hurl, so I know our relationship is pretty unique.

  Which is why I can’t understand why I’m reluctant to tell her about Pearl. Telling Pete felt ok, because I knew it wouldn’t really mean anything to him, but if I told mum she would get excited and want to meet her. She worries about my love life prospects in this small town. She wanted me to go to University, make lots of crazy lifelong friends, get drunk, burn sofas, run through town in my underwear. She was still hoping I would go and made little comments every now and then, (“Oh, look at this job advertised in the Sunday Herald. You get your own car, a travel allowance and a whopping great salary, oh wait, hang on...” she pretended to read the fine print, “you need a degree. Bugger. Sorry to get your hopes up there love.”)

  She’s a comedian.

  PEARL

  Went to the local farmers market on the weekend to get out of the house for awhile. Had barely been there five minutes when who should I see? Charlie. I’d nearly browsed my way round the small market held on the field of the local primary school. I normally love Farmers markets, you can find some real treasures, but this was a disappointment. Mainly stands selling homemade cauliflower and dill pickles and scented soaps (an overwhelming smell of lavender lingered, which I can’t stand). Crafts made out of driftwood and shells with little cheery faces painted on. I mean really, who decorates their house with this stuff? Knitted tea cosies and door stops, potted ferns and herbs in bright hand painted pots.

  I spotted him a mile off, standing with his back to me and chatting to a beautiful Maori woman behind a stall selling vegetables. I felt a pang of jealousy in my ribs and wondered where the hell it had come from. Why was I was jealous of Charlie was talking to another girl? Don’t you have to have feelings for someone to invoke such a strong emotion such as jealousy?

  Dammit.

  It was a very nice back, broad shoulders tapering down to his waist. His T-Shirt was a little snug so you could see he had little love handles. His hair was liberally gelled as usual. I found myself wondering what it would feel like without all that stuff in it, imagined running my fingers through, inhaling his scent. I was still imagining it when he turned around and saw me staring, which made me angry. Last thing I wanted to do was let him think I was interested in him.

  Then he smiled that smile at me. Oh god his lips, they were very kissable lips. A dark ruby colour; merlot. I remembered how they felt on mine.

  The power of attraction is a mystical thing. I see no rhyme nor reason in my past attractions, I just know it when I feel it. And oh am I now feeling it with Charlie. Damn kiss.

  But just as my left foot stepped forward to start leading me over to him I remembered why I was here at the beach and I did a quick 180 degree turn and walked the other way, avoiding him while I finished checking out the last few stalls then quickly headed home.

  Later, I was startled to catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and see that I was smiling, a pretty dopey smile. Come to think of it, it reminded me of a grin that I’d seen not too long ago on a blue eyed curly haired boy who lived not too far away.

  CHARLIE

  I can’t concentrate on anything. Not work, not books, not the TV, nothing. People are suspicious of the permanent smile attached to my face.

  “What’s wrong with you boy?” one regular old guy asked suspiciously. “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you won Lotto or something”

  I just smiled my smile. My Pearly smile.

  “Eh, you didn’t win the Lotto did you?” he asked, “Cause if you did would you mind loaning me a few thousand, I got some stuff needs doing up around the house” and he looked at me expectantly.

  Even when I realised he was serious and denied it he thought I was holding out on him and got all huffy and started a rumour which meant for the next couple of weeks people kept coming into the shop and asking me for loans and oh, the sob stories I heard.

  I just couldn’t help it. Every time I pictured her face I smiled. And seeing as I pictured her face about once every two seconds you can see why I did a hell of a lot of smiling.

  At night, in bed, I would close my eyes and remember how her face looked when she reached up and kissed me, her eyes closed, her nose wrinkled softly, the feel of her lips (a little dry and scratchy actually, but I didn’t let that ruin the memory).

  I wanted her more than anything I ever wanted in my life, including the action-man-soldier-complete-with-parachute figurine I wanted for Christmas when I was ten, and I wanted that a LOT.

  PEARL

  Today I feel like I turned a small corner, spiritually speaking.

  I’m not normally a spi
ritual person. I don’t do grand, dramatic gestures or believe in signs. So I’m almost reluctant to claim what happened this afternoon as anything of the sort but for lack of a better word, let’s leave it as that.

  It was another fine day at the beach. The sun was out. There’s no real heat in an autumn sun. It doesn’t burn you or cause you to sweat profusely, give you heatstroke or make you want to jump into the ocean every five minutes.

  You can bask in an autumn sun for hours and all it will do is warm you, right through to the marrow in your bones. A deep, radiating warmth. It’s very addictive.

  Lulled by the peace and the warmth I dozed in the swinging chair, stretched out, one foot on the deck pushing myself back and forth in a light rocking motion.

  I could hear the waves gently washing up on the shore. The occasional plane overhead, the cry of a gull.

  It was like a thousand perfect days rolled into one.

  Then it started to rain, an autumn sun shower, fat drops splashing on the deck, slow and far apart at first then getting faster and closer together. I started trying to grab everything, the seat cushions, my magazines, the towel and pillow still laid out from where I’d sunbathed a little earlier. All I was wearing was a light dress; a cheap navy and floral thing from Glasson’s that absolutely everyone had worn last summer. When the rain soaked through the dress and first touched my warmed skin I gasped and squealed because it was a shock, cold like someone had run an ice cube over the back of my neck. I generally dislike rain, though not with any real passion. Simply, rain is the natural enemy of any girl who starts each day in a battle with her hair straighteners.

  From over the fence I heard squeals, higher pitched than my own, children. The squeals became mingled with laughter and cries of joy and I couldn’t help it; I tiptoed to the fence and peered through a crack in the boards. Next door, children were making the most of the sudden downpour, the girls holding hands and dancing in a circle, their hair wet and plastered to their beaming faces. The boys, as boys do, were splashing each other and jumping in a growing puddle.