Charlie and Pearl

by Robinson, Tammy

  Just the thought of it makes me feel sick. Sheep’s hearts, livers and lungs all cooked in its stomach? Yuck. Whoever invented it must have been starving.

  Charlie made a fair effort to eat it, pulling faces and gagging while I laughed so much my cheeks hurt and tears came out my eyes.

  “Never again” he said.

  “But you didn’t eat it all”

  “Be careful you,” he warned, “It’s my turn to pick for you next”.

  The sign said it would be karaoke night in a few hours so we decided to stay for that, spent the time relaxed on couches in front of an open fire, drinking wine and I even tried a Guinness. According to Charlie his maternal grandmother used to insist his mother drink it when breastfeeding.

  “That explains a lot,” I teased.

  Karaoke night was huge fun. It was slow to start, but then a hen’s party came into the pub and the girls got up there and sang drunken girlie anthems like Cyndi Laupers “Girls just wanna have fun” and Madonna’s “Like a virgin” although judging by the amount of slinky satiny short dresses, make up and heels between them Charlie and I decided it had probably been a long time since any of them could make that claim. We started chatting and they dragged us up to sing Pink’s “Get the party started” with them. I noticed Charlie kept trying to gently steer me away from the microphone – not sure what that was about.

  I hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing the fun that can only be had from being with a group of girls. Charlie is great company, but boyfriend fun is very, very different to girlfriend fun. I found myself wishing I’d been there with them when they got ready to go out. All meeting up at someone’s house to start the drinking (because it’s cheaper to drink at home than out), jostling for room at the mirror to apply make-up, trying on dress after dress, and heels after heels. I used to love going out with Kelly and the others. We’d dance the night away. Crash on each other’s couches after making the taxi driver stop at a BP service station on the way home so we could buy mince and cheese pies and litres of chocolate milk, the best hangover cure in the world.

  CHARLIE

  The Hen’s party girls were a tonic for Pearl. She got a bit moody at one stage, nostalgic, I assumed, for something she would never have, but the Bride to be wasn’t going to have any sadness on her night of nights. She dragged Pearl up on the dance floor and they, ‘got down and boogied’, as girls do.

  “What’s wrong with her?” asked one of the more sober girls in the group, nodding towards where Pearl and the others were badly doing impressions of a robot dance.

  “How did you - ?”

  “Her skin, it’s grey. My dad’s skin went grey like that too, just before he died”.

  “I’m sorry to hear that”

  “Thanks. It was a long time ago now, nearly ten years. The pain never goes away though”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just made an Mmm kind of noise and took a swig of my beer.

  “So?” she asked, her eyebrows arched in question.

  “She has cancer”

  “Terminal?”

  “Yep”

  “How long has she got left?”

  I sighed. This was a question I asked myself daily, and for which I had no answer.

  PEARL

  I could see Charlie and the girl talking while I was up on the dance floor. They had their heads together, plotting something. It was clear from the looks he gave me; his smiling eyes had a cheeky glint. Next thing the girl was bouncing up on the stage and grabbing the microphone.

  “Hey everyone!” she shouted to the crowd. “Is everyone having a good time?”

  There was a chorus of whistles and cheers.

  “Well tonight’s a very special occasion for one of us,” she continued. “We have a birthday girl in the house!”

  We did? Before I knew what was happening some of the other girls had my hands and dragged me through the crowds, around the tables and chairs full of happy, jovial people and up onto the stage. I felt a bit apprehensive as from up there, an awful lot of faces, all looking at me, filled my vision.

  What the hell had Charlie said to her? She had her wires totally crossed.

  “It’s not my birthday” I tried to protest but she shushed me.

  “Let me hear it for the birthday girl!” she yelled and the crowd roared.

  “No seriously…” I said but she just grinned at me. I looked out into the crowd and I could just make out Charlie’s face, grinning at me. Clearly he was in cahoots with whatever this ambush was.

  “Ok people, pipe down” she said, “The birthday girl has a special birthday wish. Who wants to help her achieve it?”

  There were more cat calls and whistles.

  “Come on, you can do better than that!”

  Louder cat calls and whistles.

  “I…can’t…Hear…YOU!” she shouted.

  Even louder cat calls and whistles till I felt the floor vibrate beneath my feet.

  “Um…excuse me…” I tried again, a little bit worried about what was coming next.

  She ignored me.

  “So the lovely Pearl here,” she gestured towards me with a grin that could only really be described as evil, “wants to kiss 50 people before midnight!”

  She what? I turned to glare at Charlie. He winked and shrugged his shoulders and mouthed “sorry babe”. He didn’t look sorry.

  I was going to kill him.

  The girl, whose name I found out was Lara, put a chair in the middle of the dance floor and parked me on it, and then she lined up customers and staff, including the dishwashers and the chefs from out back, and one by one they came forward and kissed me, kisses ranging from chaste pecks on the cheek (from grinning grannies) to lip smacking smooches from blushing teenage boys. And some of the girls were the raunchiest of all! I was shy at first, but then I figured, you know what? I was dying, which meant I was going to be deprived of a whole lot of kissing that I should have had over the next 50 or so years so what the hell, and I went for it. It was another thing to cross off my list after all.

  Did I mention that I even kissed girls? Charlie said he knew some guys who would have paid good money to see that.

  CHARLIE

  Every Sunday we buy a phone card from a corner dairy, find a phone booth and call home. Me, I look forward to it; Mum is supportive of this trip and she loves Pearl, so we spend five or ten minutes yakking about what Pearl and I’ve been up to. One Sunday she tells me that the Bookshop has been sold. The new owners are city folk, from Auckland, looking for a lifestyle change.

  “They’ve only gone and painted the walls black and installed fancy silver lighting” she said scandalously.

  Honestly? I did feel a moment’s sadness. It was confirmation that a door had closed firmly behind me. The future was not currently something I cared to think about much. You know the old cliché, “live every day as if it might be your last”? Well I was literally living it. I couldn’t allow myself to plan more than a few days ahead.

  Pearl was reluctant to call home. I had to gently coax her, promise her she didn’t have to talk for long. Bribe her with promises of treats.

  She would call her dad first because he was the easiest one to deal with. Depending on her mood, if Kathy answered she would simply hang up without saying a word.

  “What?” she would say defiantly when I’d look at her. “If there’s one thing I know” she’d say, “it’s that I don’t have to talk to anyone I don’t want to”

  How could I argue with that?

  Her mum was always the same. Upset, crying, enquiring as to how she was feeling, whether she’d had any further bad ‘symptoms’ of her illness. Pearl would end up in a state after talking to her. We’d argue after she’d cry and say she was never going to call her mother again.

  “You can’t blame her” I’d insist. “You’re her only daughter; of course she’s going to be upset”

  Although secretly I’d think that Claire could at least make an effort to be more upbeat when talki
ng to Pearl. It was as if she was the child and Pearl the adult who had to do all the comforting. It left her in a mood every time so I learnt to leave her alone for awhile, give her some space.

  I did feel a bit guilty for taking her away from them. No one knew how long she had left; not the doctors at the hospital, certainly not I. What if I was depriving them of Pearls last days here on earth? Scratch that, I knew I was depriving them.

  But I knew that if Pearl had a choice she would choose to spend her remaining time with me, in our motor home, touring the country, over spending each day in that lazy boy in her mother’s lounge.

  Hands down, no contest.

  PEARL

  The pain is much, much worse than I expected. My legs hurt; the bones in my thighs feel like the marrow is being sucked out slowly through a straw. And my back, it’s a constant, stabbing pain every time I move or even breathe too deeply.

  I don’t tell Charlie. I’m scared that if he knows how I’m feeling he will insist on taking me to a hospital. There’s nothing a hospital can do. Maybe they could give me some morphine but I’m doing managing myself on a cocktail of Ibuprofen and wine. I know it’s highly advised against mixing the two, and I know that the packet of 24 I’m getting through in 48 hours is also probably against general advisement, but hey, what’s the worst that could happen right? I overdose and DIE?

  The hardest thing to hide is the constant need to pee. We have a toilet in the motor home but after the incident when I had to throw out one of my most favourite pairs of ballet style flats I don’t try to go when the truck is moving anymore.

  And I don’t want to ask Charlie to stop every five minutes. Especially when most of the time, I desperately feel like I want to go but nothing happens. I strain, and sit there and nothing comes out. But the feeling won’t go away.

  CHARLIE

  She thinks I haven’t noticed but I have. The amount of pills she’s taking, the way her face is sometimes so tight with the pain she’s trying hard not to show me. It’s breaking my heart but I don’t know what I can do for her.

  Last night she cried and thrashed and sweated all night. She wasn’t fully conscious, but she wasn’t asleep either. It was like she was in a semi state of awareness.

  What am I supposed to do?

  I can’t watch her die. I just can’t. How can anyone expect me to? I’m a big fat chicken-shit boyfriend because I am scared out of my head and I sometimes all I want to do is run far, far away. Somewhere I don’t have to watch the cancer turn the woman I love into a carcass.

  I’ve seen dead bodies before. Grandparents from heart attacks and strokes, an uncle from a brain aneurism, even a cousin once, killed in a car accident. They all looked pretty similar to how they looked in real life. One granddad looked so life like I kept expecting him to open his eyes and say “Gotcha!” and if I stared at him hard enough I could swear I saw his chest rising and falling with breath. The difference here is that they all died suddenly. With Pearl, she dies a little more every day, and every day she looks a little bit less like herself. Even skinnier, which I didn’t think was possible. Her eyes are huge in her gaunt face and her skin is becoming translucent. I can see the blood pumping through her veins. I want to stick a pin in one and drain all the sick blood out of her. Pump my own healthy blood back in.

  I know that our holiday has given her something to live longer for. I know she’s enjoyed it. But every day she gets a little weaker.

  We don’t take scenic walks like we did only a month ago.

  We barely leave the motor home except to dine out and even that is no longer the fun experience we used to have. She still likes to choose her food, likes to read the menu and take so long to decide that I threaten to order for her, reminding her I still haven’t paid her back for the Haggis. She laughs at me and decides on something and fidgets impatiently until it arrives but then she takes a mouthful or two and she can’t eat anymore. She wants to, but she can’t.

  PEARL

  “If you could go to the one place in the world that you really wanted to, where would it be?”

  I remember Charlie asking me this question, months ago on one of our picnics when we were stretched out on a blanket on the beach. I also remember my answer clearly, “The full moon party in Koh Panghan, Thailand”

  I’ve always wanted to go there. Ever since I was about twelve and Tania and I watched a programme about it. We were at that age where we were in a hurry to grow up. We weren’t children anymore, but we weren’t quite teenagers either. There was this whole world just around the corner; a world of make-up and hair dye, cool clothes and boys. We watched these gorgeous girls and guys, tourists, wearing short skirts and bikini tops, sandals and funky ethnic bracelets. Drinking cocktails out of buckets. They were all in Thailand for one thing – to party. To us they looked so healthy and cool. And the full moon party was legendary, the greatest party of all. On a beautiful crescent shaped beach. Starts at dusk when the yellow moon makes its appearance. They light lamps and tens of thousands of people dance the night away to a mix of DJ’s playing everything from trance to commercial dance to reggae music. Something for every taste.

  I so badly wanted to go there. To dance all night under that moon with all those cool carefree people. See the fireworks and bathe in the warm water of the ocean. I wanted it so much I could actually taste the regret that I never would.

  Charlie organised my own Full Moon Party. We parked up at a great campground right beside the beach. The sand was literally four steps away from the side door of the motor home. It was a prime spot, by a big old weeping willow offering shade. There were only three other motor homes and one tent at the camp site, and they were all down the other end near the toilets and kitchen block.

  I took my towel and soap box and went to have a shower and when I came back Charlie had set up the most magical scene; colourful Chinese lanterns hanging from the awning poles and lower branches of the willow, tea light candles in small jars on our little plastic table, which was decorated with a cherry red tablecloth, candles in glasses, bread and cheeses, salmon nibbles, all my favourite food. There was some soft music playing, old stuff, classics.

  “Oh wow” was all I could say.

  “Sorry it’s not techno dance music, it’s the only station I could get” Charlie shrugged, smiling, clearly feeling very proud of himself.

  “It’s amazing”

  We ate by candlelight then afterwards we danced, cheek to cheek, barefoot in the sand. A song came on that I didn’t know, but the lyrics were about moments to remember, something about shared laughter echoing throughout the years.

  I looked up at Charlie, into his eyes which could see right inside to the feelings inside me. “Promise me you’ll remember this exact moment?” I asked him.

  “I promise”.

  CHARLIE

  I brought the lanterns at an emporium while she was browsing in a clothes shop. Hid them in a drawer under the bed. They’d been there for over a week, just waiting till I found the perfect spot.

  She loved it. It wasn’t exactly like The Full Moon party she’d dreamed of, the only station I could get played old music like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, but I actually think it worked out better because we got to dance arm in arm, body pressed against body.

  “We’d have looked pretty stupid dancing to techno dance music all by ourselves” I told her, giving her a demonstration.

  She laughed.

  She asked me to promise her that I would remember that exact moment forever but she didn’t need to, every second of every moment I had ever spent with her was seared into my memory like our tattoos were seared into our flesh.

  PEARL

  Where is my happy ending?

  I am a Disney generation girl. I was raised to believe the princess would always get her prince and they would live happily ever after and the evil queen/step mother/witch would get her nasty comeuppance.

  I’m not supposed to be robbed of all my chances and possibilities like this.

&
nbsp; In an internet cafe in Queenstown we spend time Googling the word hello in other languages and after half an hour we can both say, correctly pronounced or not:

  Bon jour (French)

  Szia (Hungarian)

  Ciao (Italian)

  Konichiwa (Japanese)

  Salve (Latin)

  Sveiki (Latvian)

  Swasdi (Thai)

  Hola (Spanish)

  Czesc (Polish)

  Alo (Romanian)

  Privet (Russian)

  Which I realise is actually Hello in 11 languages but I was on a roll. Of course that night in bed when I try to remember them I can only recall four to Charlie’s eight but I don’t mind, it’s still firmly crossed off the list.

  CHARLIE

  I thought we would have more time than this. I mean, I’m not a doctor so I could be wrong, but I think Pearl is going downhill fast.

  She’s lost so much weight. I don’t think she’d eat at all if I didn’t remind her; she’s not interested in food at all. She doesn’t know it but when she speaks now she speaks very slowly. It is taking her longer to process between her brain and her mouth. I ask her a question and watch as she tries to formulate the answer. Her eyes are huge in her face. They’re not as bright and clear as they were; it’s as if she is seeing something else when she looks at me, somewhere else.