Chasing Charlie

by Linda McLaughlan

  The doorbell jangled me out of my dream and I looked up sharply. I shoved the other photos back into the box, returned it to the shelf and hurried to the intercom with the photo still in my hand.

  ‘Hello?’ I answered, my heart pounding.

  ‘Ed? I was about to give up.’

  It was Rebecca. What the hell was she doing here at ten o’clock on a weekday?

  ‘Erm . . . hi,’ I said.

  ‘Can you let me in? I think I’ve left something there.’

  And curses, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.

  I checked the sitting room, scanning it quickly to check I hadn’t left any photos lying around. And then Rebecca was there, about to knock on the front door. I reached for the lock, remembering just before I opened it to stuff the photo into my pocket.

  ‘Hi!’ Rebecca said brightly.

  ‘Come in, come in, it’s freezing out there.’ I motioned to her to come inside. Nervousness always makes me talk about the weather and I despised myself for it.

  ‘Horrible day,’ Rebecca said gaily as she walked towards the kitchen, turning her head to look into Sam’s room as she passed, and I got this horrible feeling she knew I’d been standing there only a few minutes before.

  ‘Yes, it does look awful. I haven’t been out yet,’ I continued. Pathetic.

  ‘Been catching up on your beauty sleep then have you?’ She stood next to the radiator in the kitchen and warmed her hands. I laughed uncertainly.

  ‘So . . . how’s the job-hunting going?’ she asked me.

  ‘Ah, OK. My friend has some hours next week. I don’t really feel like I’ve arrived yet,’ I answered.

  ‘I know how you feel.’

  Somehow I doubted that. I put the kettle on, and turned and leant against the worktop.

  ‘What have you left behind?’ I asked her, wondering how long I would have to make this painful small talk before she would leave again.

  ‘My address book – I’ll check her room in a minute. Thought it would be nice to see you while I was here.’

  ‘Right.’

  The kettle growled in the awkward silence. I was suddenly hyper aware of the photo in my back pocket and I moved away from the worktop slightly so I wouldn’t crush it.

  ‘Have you seen James this week?’ I asked her.

  Rebecca’s face darkened for a moment and then cleared, as if she was pushing away any negative feelings by force.

  ‘No. I’m not chasing him either. A bit of distance is probably the best thing.’

  I nodded. Now I was all out of questions.

  ‘Kettle’s boiled.’ Rebecca pointed behind me.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ I busied myself with making her tea.

  ‘Are you not having one?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve just had a coffee.’

  ‘Ooooh, would you make me one of your coffees? I’ve heard they’re amazing!’ Rebecca’s gushing chafed my nerves but I found myself obediently lowering the kettle and moving to the coffee machine instead.

  ‘I’ll have a quick look then. While you make that,’ she said.

  ‘Right.’

  After a bit, she came out of Sam’s room holding the photo of them camping and my stomach lurched when I saw it in her hand. For a crazy moment I thought she was going to ask me why I had been looking at it myself.

  ‘It’s not in there, so that’s a mystery,’ she prattled away. ‘Found this though. Didn’t notice it the other night – it must have been hiding.’

  I really hoped I looked surprised.

  ‘Look how skinny we were!’ she said, her eyes wide.

  ‘You’re still thin!’

  ‘I am.’ Rebecca smiled coyly.

  ‘So is Sam.’

  ‘In a size twelve sort of way,’ she said, looking at the photo again with her head to the side and then turning to me, a conspiratorial look on her face.

  I looked at the photo again, too cross to answer her. Sam’s got a gorgeous body, a damn sight more attractive than the head on sticks standing in the kitchen next to me. I am constantly amazed at how two sisters can be so different from each other. What was it that Sam told me about her? Something about Rebecca pretending when she was little that she was actually a royal living with the Moriarty family in Petersfield, placed there to give her a normal upbringing. When she turned eighteen, a Rolls-Royce would come and collect her, to take her to the life she was always destined to lead. She must have had quite a shock when the Rolls didn’t turn up.

  ‘So . . .’ Rebecca looked mischievously at me. ‘Have you found out who she was with the other night?’

  ‘No, and it’s none of my business!’ I said, too quickly to be very convincing.

  ‘Whatever! She’ll spill the beans before too long, she can never keep anything to herself.’ Rebecca laughed a hard little laugh that didn’t match her carefully groomed exterior then stared into her coffee. For a moment, she seemed to have forgotten that I was sitting there in front of her. But then she shook her head, clearing the thoughts from her mind and looked up.

  ‘Not like you, Ed. You’re quite the dark horse,’ she said.

  ‘I am?’ I squirmed under her steady gaze, my mouth dry with dread.

  13

  SAM

  Wrangling annoying extras, trying to keep children warm and having to be polite to their overbearing parents was difficult enough on an average day. It was even more difficult when a girl felt compelled to check her phone every half hour, without anyone noticing. It had been three whole sleeps since our date and the text he’d sent about how gorgeous it was to see me. My patience was almost broken enough to contact him. I wasn’t going to though; I’d promised myself I wouldn’t be that weak. I would have some fun, like Claudia said, without throwing myself at him. I did have some pride. I’m not completely sure where exactly . . . Anyway it was hard to check for text messages when everyone was meant to have their phones off. Especially when I’m essentially another set of eyes and ears for the first – who had to have a quiet set.

  Today I was working on a commercial for an insurance firm. Most of it was inside, in a pretty grand house in Highgate, but there were a few set-ups on the driveway outside. The script went: family (the children overexcited, the parents looking harassed) are leaving a children’s birthday party, they pile into their car and then the father reverses – crunch – into the fence. The ad ends with the rest of the children spilling out of the house when they hear the noise, yelling in unison, ‘You should have insured with Carsure!’ It was riveting stuff.

  All morning there had been much umming and ahhing over the weather, which had completely buggered up the proposed schedule. We were meant to shoot the exterior scenes last but as it had been threatening to rain all morning, the decision had been made to push on and get the outside shots done before the rain made it impossible. Unfortunately for me this had meant keeping fifteen extras, all aged around eight years old, plus their parents, quiet and happy inside all morning, while they waited for the scene when they were all due to emerge from the house, yelling about insurance – obviously the first thing on every eight-year-old’s mind. Whatever bright spark had written this script and thought they needed so many kids at this party (couldn’t they tell it with, say, six kids?) had obviously never been a third. And the extras! They weren’t the usual, well-behaved lot from an agency or a drama school or whatever – they were the children and friends of the client. A few of them were plugged into screens of one sort or another but most of them were horsing about and looking at me with an insolent eye, while the mums (with a couple of exceptions) gossiped and flicked through magazines.

  ‘Come in, Sam, over.’ The radio crackled on my hip.

  ‘Receiving, over.’ At last, the first! That had to be the call for my extras to stand by for their scene surely. Or, even better, we were wrapping for lunch. I glanced at my watch – one o’clock already, no wonder I was hungry. I watched a heavyset boy get up onto a chair and prepare himself to jump off into an area of floor litt
ered with discarded shoes and toys, most of them with wheels.

  ‘Stand by for updated schedule. We’re stopping now to discuss, over.’

  ‘Roger, over.’

  Crap. I shoved my radio back into its holster and reached the boy just before he jumped off, taking him by the arm and guiding him firmly to the ground.

  ‘Ow, that hurt!’ The boy shook off my hand. I looked at his flaccid face and saw a boy who didn’t get enough exercise or the word no. I sighed noisily – it was either that or scream.

  ‘I want Dad!’ he demanded, rubbing his arm some more.

  A pretty Asian woman appeared then. ‘Don’t worry, Henry. Daddy’s busy being big man outside right now, you see him soon.’

  Big man? Did she really just say that without any irony at all?

  ‘But I want him now!’

  ‘Come on, Henry, come and see what Nanny Chu has for you in her bag, it’s your favourite,’ and she took him out of my reach, thankfully, before I banged their heads together.

  Taking a chance that no one would come looking for me, I quickly popped out of the back door of the house (the extras and I were holed up in the family room slash conservatory at the back of the house, out of the way of the camera at the front) and walked quickly to the corner of the building to peer around. The camera base was under a pop-up gazebo on the driveway at the front of the house, a good thirty yards from where I stood. Even from this distance I could tell that the tension on set had moved up a few notches from edgy (fuelled only by adrenaline) to unpleasant (fuelled by fear). Overhead, the clouds loomed darkly, while on the ground, the director, DOP, first, gaffer, producer and client were huddled together. Ridiculously, the producer still had his ‘client smile’ plastered on his face, although the stress had frozen it into a frightened rictus. He would look so much more convincing if he just frowned. But who would have the balls to tell him that? I watched the gaffer break away to peer at the sky through a gaffer’s glass, looking for the position of the sun behind the clouds. My heart sank. That would indicate they were discussing the next shot, not lunch. My tummy rumbled.

  I turned to go back to the conservatory of hell when a boy shot past me, running straight for the gazebo. It was Henry. I was wrong about the lack of exercise – he could move.

  ‘Henry! Come back.’ Nanny Chu staggered past me in her heels, her hands pawing the air in front of her, looking a little like she was practising her doggy paddle in what I can only assume was an attempt to make herself go faster. Henry wasn’t listening; he was hell-bent on reaching that gazebo in record time and he was going so fast he looked like he was going to run straight into the meeting without stopping. My hand reached for the radio but wavered, not sure if a message on the radio would serve to warn my first of the incoming spoilt missile or distract her. As it was, it all happened too fast for me to stop it. Henry went to barrel into his father from behind but in the second before he made contact, his dad must have heard him – or more likely the squawking from the nanny – and half turned, just as Henry made contact, his dad’s elbow fitting neatly into the socket of Henry’s right eye. Henry reeled back, clutching his eye and screaming. Only then did my feet get into gear and I ran over to join the chaos. As I pulled up short of the group, the first fixed me with an icy stare.

  ‘Get back to the extras, Sam,’ she said, before motioning to the runner to fetch an ice pack from inside. I turned to go but she said my name again. It was really noisy with Henry going on and on, the producer flapping about apologising to the client and no doubt bitterly regretting his poorly thought-out ‘sure, what a great idea to have your son and his friends as the extras – he’ll love it!’ But I heard her all right. I could probably hear her 100 yards away, just speaking in her usual voice. There was something about firsts that always made you hear what they had to say. Something to do with consequences and all hell breaking loose, and being ever so slightly terrified of them at all times – something like that.

  I turned back. She wasn’t looking at me but at the ground. There, just behind Henry’s anguished stomping feet, was my phone, the screen all lit up and blindingly bloody obviously on. Oh crap.

  I scooped it up, fumbling to press the off switch.

  ‘Oops,’ I said, cringing. The first didn’t say a thing; she didn’t have to. Her look, cutting straight through my flaky ex-boyfriend-stalking bullshit was cold and clear. Sort it out, Sam. Now.

  14

  MARA

  Kate kissed Rosie and Luke as they sat on either side of Ed like two wriggling bookends.

  ‘Kids, listen to me – you be good kids for Aunty Mara and Uncle Ed,’ she said, trying to get one of them at least to look her in the eye. ‘Lights out at half past seven, no later!’

  ‘You’re in the way, Mum,’ Luke whined. He tried peering around her to see the television.

  ‘Charming.’ Kate gave up and turned to me. I was standing in the doorway, watching the little scene with amusement. ‘There’s a treat in the tin for you two in the kitchen and wine somewhere. Cook yourselves whatever you want. Sorry I haven’t got anything prepared,’ she said to me, glancing at the book I was holding. ‘They might not want to read, Mars, not when the telly’s on, sorry.’

  ‘I’ll give it my best shot. Anyway, Ed will listen, won’t you?’ I said, waving the book at the sofa. ‘It’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea!’

  ‘Ooooh, my favourite!’

  ‘Favewit! Favewit!’ Rosie chorused and jumped up and down next to Ed.

  ‘Well, that one might work,’ Kate conceded. ‘She’s completely obsessed with cats at the moment.’

  ‘See? Now push off out of here before you’re late, don’t worry about us.’

  We walked to the front door together.

  ‘Have you heard from Dad lately?’ she asked, pulling on a rose coat that hugged her slim frame.

  ‘No, have you?’.

  ‘Not a squeak. It’s like he doesn’t have grandchildren,’ she said bitterly.

  I took her arm. ‘Don’t take it personally. You know he just shut down after Mum left. He isn’t in touch with anyone, it’s not just you.’

  ‘I know.’ Kate threw her handbag over her shoulder, frowning. ‘I just worry about him.’

  ‘There’s only so much we can do, Katie.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Ed hasn’t seen him properly yet. When he does I’ll tag along and check in on him, how about that? Now, you stop your worrying.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ Kate opened the door. ‘Thanks for everything.’

  ‘There’s just one thing I need to tell you,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ Kate turned, still looking worried.

  ‘You look beautiful.’

  Kate’s pretty face broke into a smile, her chin falling to her chest in the bashful expression she’d carried over from childhood. I hugged her. Dear little Kate, she deserved the best after the crap she’d endured through the break-up with Martin, that slimy excuse for a human being.

  A little under an hour later, I was starting to envy Kate’s night out.

  ‘Upstairs now, Rosie. No more arguing.’ Was that the millionth time I had said that, or the millionth and one? Rosie responded by jumping from one sofa to the next, squealing in delight. I was sure I had never seen the kids so wound up, thanks to Ed. There I was thinking it would be a perfect opportunity for having a heart to heart with him by bringing him babysitting with me. What a joke.

  ‘Come on!’

  Squeal, squeal, squeal.

  ‘Ed, can you grab her? This is all your fault.’

  ‘How so, sis?’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  Ed tucked Rosie under one arm and left the room.

  I stared at his back disappearing up the stairs. When exactly did he become so annoying?

  Eventually I had Ed to myself. I pushed aside the domestic detritus on the table to make two plate-sized spaces. A plastic duck hovered close to the side of the table. I considered moving it but decided, on balance, that I wa
s too exhausted to care. I’d assumed the kids would get less tiring as they got older, but it appeared the opposite was true. How did Kate cope? I sat down and groaned.

  Thankfully Ed put a plate of food in front of me in record time. My favourite slap-up supper – poached eggs on toast. And look, the dear thing had tarted them up with chilli.

  ‘Sorry if I was grumpy before.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Ed smiled reassuringly. In a light voice – as if it didn’t matter at all – he added, ‘Rebecca came by today.’

  ‘What?’ The idea of that piece of work sneaking around my home outside chaperone hours almost had me shouting.

  ‘She thought she’d left something behind, an address book, I think she said.’

  ‘Riiiight . . .’ My fork still hovered over my food. I hoped Ed’s story was going to get better.

  ‘She’s a strange girl, isn’t she?’ he said.

  I exhaled and stabbed my knife through the egg and toast. ‘Strange is one word you could use. I could think of several others more pertinent.’

  Ed picked up the plastic duck and turned it over in his hand.

  ‘It was almost as if the address book was just an excuse to come round . . .’

  You don’t say. I knew I had to pick my words carefully. ‘She was being very friendly with you the other night,’ I said finally, not quite able to meet his eye.

  ‘She was,’ Ed addressed the fridge. ‘But I’m not actually convinced that was why she was there. I can’t quite work it out . . .’