Once he adjusted to a tedious life without her, Paul knuckled down to studying, passed his exams with good grades, and then decided all he really wanted to do was work with his dad.
Now Paul was a self-employed painter and decorator. He earned good money, so he’d got a mortgage to buy a house that had come up for sale in the village. He didn’t live there though. It was rented out and Paul still lived with his mum. He was in no hurry to change his life.
Although he had been out with several girls, and even considered settling down with one, it had fallen apart when he had accidentally called her Charlie one night. She had accused him of messing around behind her back and moved out immediately, packing her stuff and clearing off in the early hours of the following morning, after they had argued for hours.
Paul knew it was stupid of him to still be comparing everyone he met to a girl he hadn’t seen for fifteen years. After all, he and Charlie had only ever kissed once. But no one else set his pulse racing the way she had been able to just by being near. No one else ever felt right when he embraced them. For years, Charlie had been the centre of his life, and then she was just . . . gone, leaving him with a gaping hole in his chest and no capacity for excitement.
Letting himself in the front door, Paul heard the low rumble of his father’s voice in the sitting room and smiled. Mark still came around most days, and still spent the odd night on the sofa.
Paul knew his parents would never get back together, and they were better off apart. They worked best as close friends. Neither of them seemed interested in finding anyone else; they were content with the companionship they shared and the freedom they had. They often joined Paul for an evening in the village pub. As a family, they weren’t conventional, but they were happy. Now Mark didn’t need to accommodate Paul staying with him overnight anymore, he had moved to a bedsit, explaining he didn’t need more space than one room just for himself.
“Evenin’, son,” Mark greeted with a smile. He was lounging in an armchair, looking like he wouldn’t be moving for a while. “There’s beer in the kitchen.”
Although Mark Smollet was still upright and strong, the years were definitely making their mark on him. His hair had gone completely grey and a belly protruded over the waist of his jeans.
“Cheers.” Paul grinned at him and went to grab one. He had only had a couple of pints in the pub, so one or two cans wouldn’t hurt. He collapsed on the sofa next to his mother.
Reaching over, Kelly moved his hair off his forehead, smiling gently. She wished he could find someone to settle down with; she would like to have some grandchildren before she was too old to enjoy spending time with them. But the only time Paul had got anywhere near it, the girl had cleared off one night. And Paul had never explained why, other than to say they had argued. He didn’t seem capable of taking the step into commitment. Kelly wondered what it was her son was looking for.
* * *
Charlie opened the door of her flat and groaned. Her alcoholic mother looked back at her.
“No,” Charlie said tiredly before Lisa could say a word.
“You don’t even know why I’m here,” the older woman complained petulantly.
“You only come here for one reason. I don’t work to keep you in drink.”
“Charlotte,” Lisa whined. “I only need about fifty pounds, just to pay the electricity bill.”
“And how do I know you’ll actually pay the bill if I give you the money? You’re full of crap, Mum. If you want money, go and earn it. That’s the only way you’re going to get any.”
“You know I’m too ill to work!”
“You’re not ill, you’re drunk! Go and stand on a street corner, then you can earn money lying on your back! Someone out there might be desperate enough to hand over a fiver for you.”
Charlie shut the door in her mother’s face. It didn’t stop the whining though. Trying desperately not to hear the appalling noise that grated on her every nerve, she turned her back on the door. Her dad had been telling her for years not to give Lisa any more money. For years, he had also been trying to help her out so she didn’t have to live in such a horrible little flat, but Charlie wouldn’t accept his help. She felt her father had suffered enough at Lisa’s hands. It simply wasn’t fair on him to have him picking up the tab for his ex-wife’s drinking addiction.
Now Charlie was resolved to listen to him. She had tried a hundred times before, but this time she wasn’t going to give in. She would keep the money she earned, get some savings behind her, and find somewhere better to live.
Returning to the sitting room, Charlie turned up the television to drown out Lisa’s endless pleading through the letterbox. As it went on, she picked up her phone to look at the photo she had taken a few weeks earlier. From now on it was going to be her constant reminder why she had to keep refusing to bail her mother out financially. It would remind her of exactly what Lisa’s selfishness had cost Charlie.
Driving to the village where she had lived as a child had taken years to build up to. Each year she had put it off had made it even harder, and more likely it would be a wasted journey.
Charlie had pulled up across the road from the house she had lived in until she was thirteen, but it wasn’t that house that held her undivided attention. Sitting in the borrowed car for nearly two hours, she had no idea what had finally prompted her to make the trip after chickening out for so long.
Charlie didn’t know what had prompted her to snap the picture she now looked at, but she was glad she had.
Her intention had only been to see whether or not Kelly Smollet still lived there, then she could make up her mind if she wanted to do more. Then Charlie had seen him, the tall dark haired man, coming out of the door.
Charlie still couldn’t remember taking the picture on her phone, but when she got home, her mind reeling and her heart pounding, it was there.
Now she looked at Paul’s picture and her heart lurched again. The photo strengthened her resolve.
“Mummy, why is Nanna outside?” Charlie’s son asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes. She sighed, angry her mother was so self-absorbed she didn’t even think about the effect of her behavior on her grandson.
“Because I won’t open the door,” Charlie explained, looking at the boy who was the apple of her eye. His father had been the last in a succession of men who all looked similar. They all had brown hair, they had all seemed gentle and strong, and they had all been the wrong man. Charlie’s accidental pregnancy had put an end to her efforts to share her life with a man. There would never be a replacement for the boy who had stolen her heart so long ago.
The little boy climbed onto her lap and snuggled into her embrace. “Why won’t you open the door?”
“Because Nanna wants money and I won’t give her any. I need my money to look after you properly.” She kissed the tumble of brown curls gently. She didn’t think about it, but the relaxed, honest mother/son she had grown up watching had greatly influenced how she brought up her own child.
“Who’s that?” the young boy asked, looking at her phone inquisitively.
“Someone I used to know a long time ago.” Charlie sighed. The all too brief afternoon spent in the tree with her first love came into her mind again, and all the days that had followed. Paul hadn’t even tried to kiss her again, which had disappointed her so much at the time. Now Charlie could see it differently. The one year’s difference in hers and Paul ages had clearly made him a lot more mature. Charlie still yearned to feel once more that tender embrace that had stopped her falling apart completely at the time.
“What’s his name?”
“Paul.”
The boy smiled widely. “Like me!”
“Yes, like you,” she responded and touched his cheek for a moment. Her son might have the brown hair that had initially attracted her to his father, but his blue eyes were entirely hers.
The plaintive calls from outside the door had finally stopped and Charlie heaved a sigh of relief. Now she had stood her gro
und once, she would be able to do it again. It had to be easier to ignore all that whining a second time.
“Come on, back to bed with you. You’ve got school in the morning.” She stood and lifted Paul onto her hip to carry to his tiny bedroom. Every room in the flat was tiny.
After settling her son, Charlie went to ring her dad.
SIX
The alarm clock blared loudly and Paul stretched over to hit the snooze button on the top. He collapsed back on the bed for a minute to try and recapture the dream he had been woken from. It wouldn’t come though. Even if he couldn’t remember it, he still knew who had taken centre stage in the dream
Sighing, he dragged himself out of bed to go and shower, standing under the stream of hot water with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. His hand closed around his morning wood to stroke, making his breaths heavier. He seemed to have lost all his sex drive lately, so it felt good to wank again.
After finishing in the bathroom, pulling his work clothes on and heading downstairs, he crept through the sitting room so he didn’t wake his father asleep on the sofa.
The morning routine had been the same for years: up at six, shower, make sandwiches for lunch, have a mug of strong tea.
As he drank the hot tea, his thoughts strayed back to the dream he’d had so often lately. In it, he was sat in the tree with Charlie again, only this time they weren’t kids. This time it went a lot further than just an innocent peck on the lips. This time he was bolder, pulling her into his arms, kissing her deeply, fondling her breast. The dream went a lot farther than that though.
As he stood there in the kitchen, each second of the dream suddenly played out with staggering clarity.
Paul wondered how Charlie actually looked now. In his mind, she was merely a more mature version of the girl he had known. He couldn’t help thinking that if he saw her, he would recognize her instantly. Everything about her was still so sharp in his memory; her golden hair, her determined face, her wicked smile, her eyes bluer than a summer sky. Even the way she smelled came back to him.
What was she doing now? Was she married with a family? He liked to imagine her happy and settled, although his imagination never permitted a man to be painted into the scene. The thoughts were all of her surrounded by a brood of adoring children, just the way he remembered her when they were younger.
Maybe she had gone out into the world for more adventures; she could be anywhere, doing anything.
The main thing he hoped for was that she was happy. From the night she had wept so wretchedly in his arms, Paul had only ever wanted her to be happy.
Making another mug of tea for his dad, Paul went to wake him, shaking his shoulder. “Dad, tea,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the snoring.
Mark mumbled something unintelligible and turned on his side.
“Dad.”
“Mmm?”
“Tea. It’s time to get up. We’re starting work at those flats today.”
“Oh yeah,” Mark responded dozily and hauled himself up to sit and take the mug. He looked at his son closely and saw . . . what? It was the same look that was always there, but this morning it wasn’t hidden. “You okay?”
Paul smiled. “Yep.”
They didn’t talk much as they got themselves organized for work and set off in Mark’s white van. The two men worked together quite often. Their new job was two flats in a larger block that needed sprucing up ready for letting out again. Paul thought the whole building needed some serious renovation. The flats they were doing were in an awful state. Still, it meant a few weeks guaranteed work for the father and son.
As he pulled on the handbrake, Paul looked across to the pavement and caught a flash of fair curly short hair. Every time he saw a woman with hair like that, his heart stopped dead in his chest. He watched the slim but robust woman walking away with a little brown haired boy of maybe five or six years old at her side. Hand in hand, they rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.
Paul took a deep breath to settle himself and switched off the engine. He needed to get his work head on, not be stuck in the one that still dreamed of Charlie so often.
All day, as they got on with the basic preparation work in the first flat, filling in holes in the walls and rubbing down, Paul thought of the woman he had seen. It was the first time he had seen someone with hair the same shade as Charlie’s. It wasn’t just close, it was exactly like hers.
The image of the woman was locked in his head, coming up constantly over the next week, though he didn’t see her again.
* * *
Charlie stood on her father’s doorstep and rang the bell. A handsome woman answered the door with a soft smile. “He’s had his tea.”
“Thanks, Martine.”
Over the years, Charlie had come to love her stepmother, although it had been unbearable when she had first moved into Steve and Charlie’s home. Eventually, Martine had grasped that Charlie wasn’t interested in joining in with the constant round of preening that she filled her time with, and they had settled together as a functioning family.
With Martine’s realization that she had to treat Charlie like a boy, a new tranquility had come into the girl’s life, the first she had ever really known. A relaxed home life had brought them much closer together, and kept them strong through the obstacles every family had to face. The only thing missing from Charlie’s existence was her best friend.
“Mummy!” Paul leapt up from the sitting room floor where he sat watching television. He rushed into Charlie’s embrace as she knelt to welcome him there.
“Have you been a good boy for Nanna Martine?”
He grinned. “I made biscuits!” he told her.
“Did you? Are you going to show me, or have you eaten them already?”
He took her hand and dragged her to the kitchen, proudly displaying the haphazardly shaped biscuits on a cooling rack.
“Can I have one?” Charlie asked. Paul selected the smallest one to give her. She chuckled. “Only a little one?”
Paul studied his mother, then the products of his hard work, and chose the biggest he could see. “Have that one,” he told her, taking the little one to cram into his own mouth.
Kissing his head, Charlie closed her eyes and breathed in his scent. “Thank you.”
“Has your mum been back?” Martine asked carefully.
“Every day,” Charlie told her with a grimace.
The older woman put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It will stop, honey,” she assured her stepdaughter, leaning to place a kiss amongst the blonde curls.
The conversation ended there as Steve Teasley came in from work. Paul rushed to meet the great god that was his grandfather.
“Up you come,” Steve chuckled, lifting the boy to perch on his arm. “Is mummy here?”
“She’s eating my biscuits,” Paul confided.
“Your biscuits, eh? Well, we better go and make sure she doesn’t eat them all!”
He carried his grandson to the kitchen and kissed first his wife and then his daughter in greeting. As he sat to join in sampling the fruits of Paul’s labours, Charlie smiled softly to herself. This family she had now – a father she still adored, a stepmother she had come to love, and a child who was the centre of her world – was all that really mattered to her. She didn’t think she would ever get involved with a man again. There was only one man she wanted, and he probably had a family of his own. He would always be the missing part of her though.
“Are you working tomorrow, Charlie?” Martine asked as she went to pour Steve the glass of whiskey he liked to have when he got home.
Charlie Page 4
