The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers

by Paul Torday

  ‘I hope you’re not,’ I said.

  ‘Life’s very strange, isn’t it,’ Charlie mused later, over roast chicken, chips and peas. ‘I mean, we come from different walks of life, but you and Henry have both been very good to me. I now see the mistake I’ve made: I tried to take too many short cuts through life. You look around you and you see other chaps with big cars and smart houses with two garages and a jacuzzi, and you think: Why not me? I’ve tried to climb the stairway to success two steps at a time and it hasn’t worked. In fact, to be frank, it’s been a total bloody disaster. You and Henry have got it about right, I reckon. You work hard, lead regular lives, keep your head on your shoulders, and your shoulders to the wheel. My problem is I’ve always believed that with the right scheme, it would be possible to get rich quick. But looking things squarely in the face, I couldn’t really be any poorer than I am now.’

  ‘Have some more wine,’ I said. I didn’t feel very comfortable being singled out as a role model.

  ‘I will, thank you, old boy. It’s slipping down a treat. I’m afraid the Chateau Kloof stuff I sent you was a bit rough on the palate. Perhaps it was too young. I don’t know whether you noticed? As I was saying earlier, I need to get straight. I need to think things over. It’s time to prove to myself that I can do something worthwhile before it’s too late. Don’t worry, old boy, I won’t overstay my welcome . . . you’ve done a good deed, bringing me here, and I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.’

  Eighteen

  When I awoke the next morning, the sun streaming in through curtains I had forgotten to close the night before, I saw a light blinking on my mobile indicating I had a text message. I sat up and picked up the mobile from the bedside table. The text said: ‘Coming to stay with you meet me Newcastle Airport Wednesday 15:35 flt from Nice xxx Harriet.’

  The message was dated earlier that morning. I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock: I couldn’t believe I had slept for so long. I still felt slightly muzzy from the extra whisky or two that seemed to be a feature of evenings with Charlie Summers, but it wasn’t just the drink, I admitted to myself. I had been short on sleep for a while and somehow Charlie’s presence, the arrival in my house of someone so much worse off than I was, had allowed me a dreamless sleep.

  It was too late to phone Harriet to tell her not to come. She would be on her way to the airport in Nice by now. Besides, I knew that I badly wanted to see her. I got up, showered, shaved and dressed and then, feeling lighter of heart than I had for a while, went and looked in Charlie’s bedroom. He was still enjoying his night’s rest, lying flat on his back and snoring gently. I decided it would be cruel to wake him with the news that he had to leave; I was quite sure that if Harriet was coming to stay, I did not want Charlie around for much longer. Good deeds can easily go too far.

  I went into the kitchen and made myself some coffee, then took it outside to the wooden table. The dew had dried on the seats, so I sat down and contemplated the view, wondering what I would do when Harriet arrived. I looked at my watch and realised there was not that much time - I would have to be at the airport in a few hours. Meanwhile, the house needed to be smartened up; food and drink had to be purchased; clean linen and towels organised.

  I wrote a note for Charlie and left it on the kitchen table.

  ‘Dear Charlie - my cousin Harriet has just been in touch to say she is coming to stay tonight. I’m afraid that means I’m going to have to ask you to move on...- here I paused and decided it would be too harsh to throw him out today, so wrote - ‘tomorrow. I will be out until about five or six. Eck.’

  Then I went to the car, climbed in and drove down to the Pierces’ cottage at the bottom of the lane. Sam Pierce was in the garden clipping a yew hedge. I stopped and wished him good morning.

  ‘Another lovely day, Mr Eck,’ he said, putting down his shears as if he was ready for a good long chat.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Still, we deserve it after the cold spring we’ve had,’ said Sam, offering me the opportunity to comment on the weather so far.

  ‘Is Mrs Pierce around this morning?’ I said. ‘Only I’d be very grateful if she could come to the house and give it a tidy up and change the linen - I have an unexpected guest coming tonight. And I’ve another staying in one of the spare bedrooms, a Mr Summers.’

  ‘She’s gone to the village for some milk,’ said Sam, ‘but I’ll tell her when she gets back.’

  ‘I must dash,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  I drove to Newcastle and spent a couple of hours shopping. There was almost no food in the house and very little left to drink, after the previous night, so I crammed the back of the car with carrier bags full of supplies, and hoped that Harriet didn’t have too much luggage with her.

  Then I drove to the airport, arriving at least an hour too early. For a while I sat in the car, then got out and went to the arrivals area, where I drank a cup of coffee, looking up at the board about every ten seconds. At last it showed that Harriet’s flight was landing. My heart began to hammer and I felt a painful sense of anticipation. I tried telling myself that it was only my cousin Harriet, whom I had known for years, but it made no difference. How will I greet her, I wondered: a peck on the cheek? Should I make it clear to her that I was taking nothing for granted? While I was debating these questions she came through the arrivals gate wheeling a suitcase behind her. As soon as she saw me, she flew straight into my arms.

  On the drive back I said, ‘I have an unexpected guest at home.’

  ‘I thought I was the unexpected guest.’

  ‘You are, and the nicest possible surprise. But I’ve another: Charlie Summers.’

  Harriet was delighted.

  ‘I’m so looking forward to meeting him.’

  ‘Make the most of it. I’ve told him he’s got to go tomorrow morning.’

  ‘That sounds hard, Eck.’

  ‘People like Charlie always need deadlines,’ I told her.

  Then Harriet said, ‘Are you glad I’ve come?’

  ‘You know I am.’

  ‘Only, when we spoke on the phone, I wasn’t quite sure.

  You said your life was in a muddle, and you couldn’t explain it.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I did say that,’ I agreed. ‘I’m very glad you’re here, but some things have happened recently that . . . it’s not easy to explain while I’m driving. Can I tell you about it when we get to the house? In fact, it might have to wait until I’ve got rid of Charlie Summers.’

  Harriet frowned, but asked no more questions. And as things turned out, the matter explained itself in a way I could never have imagined.

  *

  When we turned into the lane that led up to Pikes Garth Hall, we found a police Land Rover parked across the road, its blue light flashing. I felt a sudden knot tighten in my stomach. I hoped to God Charlie hadn’t topped himself after all. It wasn’t possible to drive around the Land Rover, so I pulled my own car on to the grass verge, and Harriet and I got out and walked towards the house.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

  Two more police cars were parked outside the house. A uniformed policeman was standing at the foot of the steps that led from the garden into the lane, talking to Sam and Mary Pierce. Mary was very pale; Sam red faced and flustered. Another officer and a man in plain clothes, presumably a detective, came out of the house.

  ‘Are you Mr Chetwode-Talbot?’ asked the detective when he saw us.

  ‘This is Mr Eck,’ cried Sam, before I could speak. ‘Oh, Mr Eck, the most dreadful thing has happened.’

  As far as I could piece the events together, what had happened had taken place a couple of hours after I had left the house. The event that I had dismissed as so improbable that it was not worth thinking about had, in the end, occurred. The websites had stirred up the desire for action among the jihadists of the valleys of North Lancashire. Perhaps a message had come to them from Aseeb. After all, w
ho knew what friends a man like that had? Perhaps this abduction had been carefully planned, or perhaps it was a spur-of-the-moment initiative by a local group acting on their own. This last possibility seemed the least likely: as subsequent events showed, a certain amount of organisation had gone into the kidnapping.

  Mary Pierce had been straightening Charlie’s bedroom upstairs. Charlie himself had risen from his slumbers and was enjoying a mug of coffee in the kitchen. Whether he had read my note telling him to go, I cannot say. I hope he did not see it. Mary Pierce heard the noise of a van coming up the lane. Of course, she took no notice: it might have been the postman, or a special delivery.

  Charlie must have risen from the table when he heard the van, and gone outside to see whether it was something that required his attention. No doubt he had wanted to be helpful. The van - Mary couldn’t see more than the roof from where she stood - had parked at the foot of the steps, and two men were getting out of the cab. Then two more men got out of the rear of the van. Charlie knew trouble when he saw it. He must have realised in that instant that something was very wrong indeed. Mary Pierce rushed downstairs and hid in the hallway, from where she could see the open door and Charlie standing with his back to her.

  She heard the sound of raised voices outside, and one in particular, speaking in an accent that was more Lancashire than Pashtun: ‘Are you the lad that killed our brothers at Gholam Khot?’

  Her description wasn’t much use to the police: tracksuit bottoms and trainers, leather jackets, woollen hats pulled down over the men’s dark faces. She saw that one, perhaps more than one of them, had a gun. She was paralysed by fear: it wasn’t only the sight of the guns but something more than that - the posture and voices of the men communicated a sense of absolute menace.

  She heard Charlie say in reply, ‘I am Major Chetwode-Talbot, yes.’

  He stood at the top of the steps, facing them. I can picture him standing there, a slight smile playing on his lips. I believe that I know exactly what was going through his mind: he was Gordon of Khartoum - he was Charlton Heston playing the part of Gordon - standing on the steps of his palace by the Nile, unafraid and unarmed, confronting the blood-maddened hordes of the Mahdi, and staring boldly down into their faces.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Charlie.

  Mary Pierce saw one of the men raise his gun and point it at him. She said she nearly fainted. Charlie did not flinch.

  ‘You are going to pay for your crimes,’ the man hissed, pointing the gun.

  ‘Have you come from Afghanistan?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Nay, lad, we’re from Oldham. But where you’re going is another matter.’

  The other man said: ‘Come on, let’s not fuck about here all day. Get him in the van.’

  Charlie did not move. There was no struggle. The men came up the steps and grabbed him by the arms, then frogmarched him down to the van and pushed him into the back. By now Mary Pierce was frantic. She said that Charlie made no attempt to deny their mistaken identification, and went quietly with his captors. When she heard the sound of the van starting up, she ran to the door and saw an old blue Ford Transit that then disappeared down the lane. The only concrete clue Mary was able to give the police was the first half of the number plate.

  ‘He did look a lot like you, Mr Eck,’ she told me much later when she finally felt able to talk about it. ‘Only a bit older, and more tired.’

  I believe that Charlie, who had lived by his wits for most of his life, appreciated the situation as soon as the four men got out of the van. Despite everything I had told him to the contrary, he had always insisted on believing that I still worked for my country in secret. He must have thought very quickly, much more quickly and coolly than I would have done in those circumstances. He may have seen one of the men looking at a photograph of me and realised as soon as they spoke that they presumed that he - poor, lost, battered Charlie Summers - was Eck Chetwode-Talbot, hero of countless secret actions against the forces of evil. It was simply too good an opportunity to resist.

  I also believe that, in the few microseconds available to him for any form of rational thought or judgement, he came to a decision. All his life he had tried to live by deception, by confidence trickery of a minor sort, and all his life he had seen it go wrong and ended up having to cut and run. He no longer had the strength or the will to go on. That much was already clear to him - and he had made it clear to me, as we talked the evening before. Perhaps he simply surrendered to the fate that awaited him, because in the end it was a solution to the unbearable question of what to do with the rest of his life.

  I have played the scene of Charlie’s abduction over and over in my head times without number and have come to another conclusion about Charlie, and the life that he led.

  In the ranks of the world’s debtors, Charlie stood very low. He had never really done serious harm to anyone but himself. In the balance sheet of his own life, however, it was otherwise. For him, each deception - whether practised on me, or Henry, or Sylvia Bendy, or the dozens of other people he had tried and failed to manipulate in the course of his varied and hopeless life - was a creditor unpaid, a debt as painful as a wound. This final deception, in the last few seconds of freedom and choice that he ever had, was, in his eyes, an opportunity for redemption: a moment when all his debts might be cancelled by a single act. I am imagining all this, putting thoughts into his head, and yet I feel as sure about it all as if I had been there beside Charlie. In my mind Charlie gave up his life for mine, so that I could go on living happily ever after, with the ‘dishy girl in the photograph’.

  *

  Of course, there was a great deal of fuss that day. More and more policemen arrived and stood about, doing nothing except talking to each other. Nick Davies called me on my mobile to find out whether I was all right, and I explained what had happened.

  He laughed when he heard. ‘You killed the wrong guys, they kidnapped the wrong man - I’d call it a draw. I think you might be lucky. I doubt they’ll try again once they find out their error: too embarrassing.’

  ‘I’m luckier than Charlie, anyway,’ I said tersely.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charlie Summers, the man they took. He was a sort of friend of mine, Nick. I hope you’re looking for him.’

  ‘Yes, of course, the police will do their best. Don’t worry; we’re looking for the people who did this as hard as we can.’ I spoke to Nick a couple of weeks later, and he told me that they had searched through a few hundred miles of CCTV tapes and found a blue Transit van whose number plate matched the partial description Mary Pierce had given them. It was parked near the docks at Teesport. The theory that emerged in the end was that Charlie had been put on board a vessel moored at the grain terminal. The ship had sailed later that day, bound for Basra with a cargo of wheat. The particular vessel they suspected was Panamanian flagged and the ultimate ownership was traced to Dubai, but nothing was ever proved one way or the other. What was meant to happen to me, or Charlie, after arrival in Basra, was never made clear: onwards to Iran, or Pakistan, or Afghanistan?

  ‘It could be that they planned to ship you out to that part of the world for some sort of video trial,’ said Nick. ‘It would have been a tremendous propaganda coup for the Taleban, of course, and would have guaranteed a huge number of hits on their websites. They screwed up, of course.’

  Nick promised to keep in touch but somehow I didn’t expect to hear from him. I was no longer of any use to him. Yet I couldn’t help hoping that one day Charlie would simply pop up at my door with some other new scheme.

  The local press picked up the story, but their version was so garbled and incoherent that the nationals didn’t run it. There was some other story that day: rumours of a snap general election filled the front pages, and as no one was quite sure what had happened to Charlie Summers, or who he was, or where he had been taken, it was never followed up.

  Poor Harriet had endured a baptism of fire on her arrival at Pikes Garth Hall. I told her,
‘That was what I was worried about; that was why I didn’t want you to come.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now,’ she replied.

  She has stayed.

  *

  Mountwilliam Partners was finally wound up owing hundreds of millions of pounds to various banks, not to mention losing all the money it had invested for its hapless private clients. Henry’s call was not the only one I received, and after a while I let Harriet answer the phone. She did so very briskly, and few callers rang back more than twice. But the whole affair was a five-minute wonder and I had been only a minor player.

  For a long time after, I was reluctant to go about in society. I felt like a pariah, but after a while Harriet made me face up to the world.

  ‘It wasn’t you who lost the money,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows that you were acting in good faith.’

  I wasn’t so sure that acting in good faith had been enough. But if one or two of my friends whom I put in to Mountwilliam Partners still treats me rather coolly these days, I find I can live with that. No one has a perfect record: not me, not them.

  I haven’t seen Henry and Sarah Newark since the collapse of the fund. My annual pheasant-shooting invitation has disappeared, along with the pheasants and, Henry told me over the phone, the woods they used to live in.

  ‘I managed to keep the bailiffs from the door in the end,’ he told me when he rang one day, a few months later. ‘We clear-felled the woods and sold the mature timber - luckily for us, timber prices have been on the up lately.’

  I thought of the ancient stands of oak and the tall beechwoods that had adorned the Stanton Hall estate, the bluebell-filled glades that were no more. Henry sensed my thoughts and said, ‘I should have cut them down before now, but it would have spoiled the shooting. That doesn’t matter; I can’t afford to shoot any more. The woods were a cash crop, and I needed cash. I’ve had to sell my guns, too. And we sold most of our cottages.’