Charlie and Pearl

by Robinson, Tammy

  “As if!” one hollered.

  “That’s sissy stuff!” said another.

  “Poetry’s for nerds”

  “I aint never even read a book and you expect me to write one?”

  “There will be free beer,” I said, “and probably chips”

  There was a pause while glances were exchanged.

  “Which day is it again?”

  CHARLIE

  Oh how I’ve loved watching Pearl plan this Books and Beer night. She’s been obsessed with it, planning, preparing, ticking things off her list. Several times I’ve heard her mumble stuff in her sleep that makes me think she’s planning it during that time as well.

  “Do you really think it will work?” she asked me for about the hundredth time, as she hauled a giant chilly bin we borrowed off Raj in the fish’n’chip shop behind the table she had set up, ready to distribute the beers. She’d roped Cushla in to do the distributing, and Rangi was on door duty.

  “Don’t let anyone who’s obviously intoxicated in” she’d told him.

  “In this town?” he scoffed, can of Tui safely nestled in one hand. “I thought you wanted people to come”.

  “It will be great babe” I reassured her. Although secretly I was worried that no one would turn up. Really worried. I’d known these people longer than she had. I was worried it was a little too far out even for them and I couldn’t stand for her to get her heart broken.

  I take it all back. These people I have known my whole life, who think wearing jeans to the pub is “flashing it up” and who voted against doing up the heavily potholed road around the roundabout last year because “we’d rather the money was spent on fireworks for the New Years display”, really came through for me tonight.

  At 6.30pm, the time advertised on the posters, the street was empty, and Pearl was downcast. At 6.50pm, a steady trickle of people started wandering in, laughing and joking and clearly ready for a good night.

  And a good night it was.

  People I never expected in a million years got up on the makeshift stage and read out their stories, admittedly mostly hunting yarns, and long ones at that, but the audience was respectful and appreciative. Whistling and gasping and jeering at the right moments. Clapping and cheering.

  Julie’s poem went down a storm. Whew, the language! When she finished I looked around the room and more than a few of the toughest guys in town were looking at the floor and blushing.

  We judged the winners by the volume of the audience cheers and Pearl presented them with a bottle of wine each with a red ribbon tied round the neck, and a $40 voucher for the shop, “not redeemable on lotto tickets” I hurriedly got up and added.

  By ten, most people had left, although a few hung around to help us clean up and rearrange the furniture back into place. The general consensus as people left was that it was a “choice night” and even “worth missing Shortland Street for.” High praise indeed.

  Pearl was tired though, completely worn out by it. She slept heavily that night and the next morning she didn’t stir at all when the alarm went off, or when I got up and showered, dressed, boiled the jug.

  Besides, Pearl can be a bit, what’s the word, dramatic some mornings when things don’t go her way. For a start there’s the whole timing thing. A typical day goes like this: When the alarm goes off I nudge her, and she mumbles back at me “Just ten more minutes...” So I push snooze, and we cuddle. When the alarm goes off a second time I try and encourage her to think about getting up. “It’s alright,” she says, “I know what I’m wearing, I only need 5 minutes to do my makeup and my hair can go another day without a wash, I’ll just stick it up in a ponytail or something. It’ll be fine.”

  Then she finally gets up and the reality is much, much different. The top/skirt/jeans she planned on wearing are nowhere to be found, and after ten minutes of fruitless searching during which she gets more and more hysterical, telling me that she is “over this crap” and that it is “ten minutes of her life that she will never get back!” I finally find it underneath the mountains of clothes casually thrown into the corner but it’s wrinkly and doesn’t smell too fresh so substitute top/skirt/jeans must be found, and as we haven’t done any washing for, oh, about two weeks, pickings are slim.

  Makeup goes quite smoothly, although for some reason she always chooses mornings like this, when time is already stretched to the limit, to try ‘something different’ and her hoped for smoky eye effect that she has tried to replicate from a magazine looks more like she went ten rounds with David Tua in the ring, although of course I don’t tell her this. Instead I tell her she looks “lovely” which as we all know is code for ‘you’re teetering on the very edge of the precipice and I know I have to tread very carefully, so please don’t yell at me’.

  So I crept out and left her sleeping, a note on the table signed simply with a kiss.

  PEARL

  The Books and Beer night really took it out of me. You know how sometimes when you’re so excited about an event, be it a birthday party, wedding or graduation, you pretty much live on excitement and anticipation in the build up to it? That was me and afterwards I was totally depleted. Spent.

  I woke up at 11.50am the next day and Charlie, kind, considerate Charlie had gone to work and left me to rest. He might act like an idiot most of the time, but he’s my sweet idiot.

  I dragged my duvet out to couch and curled up there. Winter rays of sunshine shafted though the window, casting stripes across the floor and my face and lulling me back to sleep with their warmth.

  I slept again until Charlie came home.

  I didn’t even make the connection. Or maybe I did but didn’t want to admit it?

  Either way, I was stupid.

  CHARLIE

  When I came home she was still sleeping; knackered, she told me, from all the preparation she’d done for the night at the Book shop. She was warm and toasty and soft when she reached up her arms and wrapped them around my neck, muzzling her face under my chin and causing me to forget any concerns.

  “I’ve got plans for us tomorrow” she murmured

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yep, hope you’ve got your strength up”

  “For...?’

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see”

  I cooked her spaghetti and meatballs, my own secret recipe (ok, BBQ sauce and grated cheese INSIDE the meatballs make them moist and to die for) then we watched the Biggest Loser (Australian) and went to bed.

  “Are you sure we’re up for this?” I asked her the next day as she zipped up her lifejacket.

  “Well I am. Are you chickening out on me?”

  “No, not...chickening out. Although, are you sure these guys know what they’re doing?” I looked doubtfully at the bronzed, wiry men dragging the rafts down near the entry point to the water; the black, (apart from the churning white frothy bits), bottomless, furious water.

  “Of course they do, they’re pros”

  “Right”

  She looked at me, knowingly, “Charlie, millions of people do this every day and they survive”

  “Millions?”

  “You know what I mean”

  “This is not what I had in mind you know, when you said you had a surprise for us”

  “Why? What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know, just not this”. I did know though. I had been expecting another romantic remote picnic somewhere, just the two of us. And when she had said I needed my strength I’d hoped she’d meant for...you know...touchy feely stuff.

  “Right everyone” the instructor called, “let’s get going shall we!”

  “Um” I raised my hand, like I was back in high school. I’m sure I heard a few groans from the group.

  “Yes?” Ken (our lead instructor) asked.

  “Can we maybe just run over the safety protocols one more time? Just to be sure I’ve got them down pat”.

  PEARL

  Rafting was an absolute blast. I fell out twice and one of those times
nearly got stuck under a rock but I’ve never felt so alive. I was high on adrenaline afterwards, pumped, drunk with life.

  Charlie was white as a sheet and the second we touched safe ground again he flung himself on it and refused to get up until I promised I would never make him do it again. Ever. With a cherry on top.

  “Blouse” I called him, affectionately.

  “Crazy adventure junkie chick” he retorted.

  We decided that it had been too much fun to just go home again so we drove to the big town and dined on Thai (whole fried snapper with chilli, ginger and garlic - delicious) and watched a movie (Horton hears a who – a Dr Seuss adaption with Jim Carrey as the voice of the elephant, which was great because I normally can’t stand him but I didn’t have to see him – oh and which was hilarious) then we went for a walk along the beachfront walkway, arm in arm, under the huge Pohutukawa trees, and I told Charlie they were my favourite tree in the whole wide world, because in summer they bloomed with fat crimson red bristly flowers, quite rightly earning their reputation as New Zealand’s native Christmas tree.

  The amber streetlights were just blinking on.

  We were both rugged up in jackets, and I could smell the spicy aftershave he wears, from an orange bottle I now knew. I could smell that and the smell of the salty ocean. I remember thinking that they blended together perfectly.

  And that’s the last thing I remember.

  CHARLIE

  I have never been so scared in my entire life.

  One moment we were walking along, arm in arm as the horizon blended soft pinks and indigo. I was feeling...proud, like any guy should with his girl, a girl who that day had showed me yet another side to herself; even though it was a side I wasn’t exactly onboard with myself.

  “I’ll just stay on the shore next time and watch you” I told her.

  “Sorry what’s that? I’m still a little deaf from all the girly screaming you did in my ear” she joked.

  We’d eaten a nice dinner, laughed through a funny movie, and were snugly enjoying the night air. One minute I was telling her how Rangi and I used to sit on the beach at night, having snuck out after dark, and we would use twigs and pretend we were smoking, blowing the cold frosty air out like smoke. We thought we were so cool. She was laughing one second and the next she was folding into me, like a collapsing deck chair, her eyes rolled back into her head, her face whiter than white.

  “Pearl!” I shouted, catching her awkwardly and half falling with her, my knee hitting the ground heavily causing a sharp pain to shoot up my leg. “Pearl!” I shook her; put my head to her mouth to see if I could hear her breathing like they did in the movies. I couldn’t hear anything, what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t know what to do. How could I not know what to do!

  I took out my phone, called 111, shouted for an ambulance. The lady on the other end of the phone was reassuring, “Calm down Sir, help is on the way ok” she said.

  Someone ran over, alerted by my shouts. They knew more than helplessly stupid me, put her in the recovery position, checked her airways, cradled her head. Other people gathered.

  The rest of the night is a blur of images, sights, sounds.

  Flashing lights, an ambulance, stretcher. Gloves, pulses.

  The drive to the hospital, beeping machines, sirens, oxygen masks.

  Doctors, nurses, fluorescent lights, plastic footsteps.

  Waiting room, hard chairs, old magazines, Styrofoam cups of sweet coffee.

  Confusion.

  Sometime after one in the morning a doctor came out to see me in the waiting room. I stood up, scared of what he might say.

  “Are you family?” he asked.

  “No, I’m her boyfriend. Is she ok?”

  “At the moment yes, she’s fine.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “We’re not sure at this stage. She lost consciousness for a period of time but she’s stable now. We’ll know more when we run some tests tomorrow”

  “Can I see her?”

  “She’s asleep right now; we’ve given her something to help her rest. I’ll get a nurse to take you through in a minute and you can sit with her, but please, don’t disturb her”

  “I won’t”

  “Does she have any family that we should call?”

  “Her mum, I guess...but I don’t have the number”

  He looked at me a little strangely. “Well, I guess all that can wait until tomorrow”

  He went back through the double doors which closed behind him and a minute later a nurse stuck her head out, holding the door open.

  “Come though love, but keep it down ok, people are sleeping”

  I followed her through the doors into the ward, the lights were dimmed, I trod lightly, followed her to the cubicle down the end with a curtain drawn around it, just like the others. She opened it a crack and beckoned me through, “there’s a lazy boy you can rest on” she said, “I’m in an office over there if you can let me know when you’re leaving.”

  “Do I have to? I want to stay with her all night, if that’s possible”

  She looked at me, her head on the side and with pursed lips. “That’s not really normal procedure”

  “Please?” I must have looked pathetic enough because she sighed.

  “Ok, as long as you don’t disturb her or anyone else”

  “I won’t, I promise”

  She let the curtain fall closed behind her and I heard her plastic crocs walk lightly off, one slightly sticking to the floor and making a suction noise every time she lifted it. I took a deep breath, and turned to look at Pearl.

  She looked like Pearl. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d been expecting but she looked just like she normally did sleeping. Maybe a little paler than normal and with some inky black smudges under her eyes, but still her.

  I sat in the lazy boy for hours, just watching her breathe, memorising every curve of her face; her lips, her nose, her eyelids. I never noticed how long her eyelashes were before. I felt an urge to tickle them with my finger but I resisted. At some stage I dozed off because when I woke up it was morning, the light in the room was brighter, natural light, and I could hear every day sounds of a busy hospital muffled in the distance.

  Pearl was still sleeping. “You sleep like the dead” I joked with her once.

  The curtain was pulled pack and the same doctor from before entered. “Morning” he smiled briskly, and checked the machines hooked up to Pearl.

  “I’m off soon” he said, “but I’ve done the handover with the next doctor and he will run some bloods, probably order a scan. We should know more today.”

  “Don’t” Pearl said weakly.

  “Hey you’re awake!” I was so relieved to hear her voice again.

  She smiled at me, sleepily, “Hey you”

  I took her hand in mine and she lifted both up to her cheek, nestling them against her skin, inhaling our scent.

  “Good morning Pearl” the Doctor said, “Do you know where you are?”

  She looked at him, licked her dry lips. “Hospital”

  “That’s right, you had a bit of an episode last night, so we’re going to run some tests today to see if we can find out what caused it”

  “No”

  “I’m sorry?’

  “No tests” she said firmly. “I already know what’s wrong” She turned towards me, her eyes anxious.

  “I’m sorry Charlie,” she said, “I didn’t know how to tell you”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I have cancer”.

  PEARL

  “I’ll give you two a moment” said the Doctor tactfully and left the cubicle, pulling the curtain closed behind him.

  Oh god. This is not how I wanted Charlie to find out. I hadn’t even decided if I wanted to Charlie to know at all. This thing we have, whatever it was, I had no idea how long it was going to last. There wasn’t even supposed to be a ‘thing’ in the first place!

  Talk about backed into a corner.

 
; “I’m sorry” I said again.

  “I don’t understand” he said, his expression shell-shocked. “How long have you known for?”

  “I found out a few months before I came here”

  “Shouldn’t you be...I don’t know...having chemotherapy or radiation or whatever it is they do?”

  I looked down at my lap, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I didn’t like talking about something that I hadn’t even let myself think about.

  “I tried chemo, it was horrible”

  He frowned, “but isn’t that the point?”

  “Charlie, the type of cancer I have, it’s terminal. Chemo might give me a little longer but I made a decision, I want quality of life, for however long I have left.”

  After the whole drama with the forced miscarriage for the ‘products of conception’, I had to have weekly blood tests and when my pregnancy hormones didn’t fall quite as fast as they expected they sent me along for a scan, just to make sure they’d ‘got everything’.

  Products of conception? It was a baby you asshole! That’s what I should have said to the doctor who said it in a matter of fact tone. But I was too numb to say anything.

  Anyway, I went for the scan, sat in the waiting room with ready to pop pregnant woman all around me, laid on the bed and gasped when the woman put cold gel on my belly, and turned my face away from the scan while she checked to make sure my useless uterus was empty.

  So I never saw what she saw. The first I knew anything was wrong was when my GP called me into her office.

  “You have a mass” she said gravely, “on your ovaries. We need to schedule you in to have it biopsied.”

  Which was unpleasant to say the least, but nothing compared to what came afterwards. Bloods, scans, more biopsies. More bloods. More scans. Till they sat me down in a room one day, only two weeks after the original scan.

  “We’re so sorry” they said, “but its cancer and it has spread to other parts of your body”