Charlie

by Eden Elsworth

“Yeah. Will you be able to pick Paul up from school? If you can’t, I can probably leave early.”

  “Of course I can.” Martine smiled and touched her fingertips to the little boy’s cheek. She hadn’t been able to have children of her own, and she had been thrilled when she first found out Steve had a daughter. But Charlie had taken an instant dislike to her, a dislike that had lingered for over a year after she moved in with them.

  To start with, Martine just hadn’t been able to figure the girl out. Charlie had been overly emotional and far too easily upset. Martine hadn’t known all the details of what had happened with Charlie and Lisa then. Eventually it had all come out. And once Martine had started to see Charlie wasn’t in the least bit feminine, things had eventually settled down. Now she loved Charlie as if she was her own.

  “Did Lisa come again last night?” Steve asked cautiously when Paul had wandered back to the sitting room to carry on watching television.

  “Yes,” Charlie sighed. “I really hope she gets the hint soon. It’s driving me insane. Every time she comes round, she upsets Paul.”

  “You can’t give her any more money, love,” Steve told his daughter sternly. “You have to think of Paul.”

  “I know.” Charlie had to stand firm. She had to cut her mother away completely, for her son’s sake more than her own. The last thing she wanted was for the uncaring old drunk to still be hounding them for money when Paul was old enough to work.

  “Are you coming over on Saturday,” Steve asked his daughter hopefully.

  She grinned. “Probably.”

  “I was thinking we could go and watch some banger racing, if you fancy going?” The interruption to all the things Charlie had enjoyed doing as a child hadn’t lasted long after Martine had realised she had more fun going off to get herself pampered with her friends, rather than dragging along a girl who hated every minute of it.

  “Sounds good.” Charlie smiled at her father. She completely adored him, and always would. He had accepted her character at a young age, fought for her when she had needed him to most, and provided a stable home for her to mature in. That was why she always refused his offers to help her with money.

  “Paul can stop here with me if the two of you would like to make a real day of it,” Martine put in. It would give her a chance to take the little boy out and spoil him rotten for a few hours. She could get him some new clothes. That was the only way she and her husband ever got to ease the burden for Charlie. The girl could be so damn stubborn about money.

  Charlie smiled at her gratefully, not realizing what Martine had planned. “That would be really good. I should get Paul home. He probably needs a bath before bed after doing baking. I bet he got more flour inside his clothes than in the biscuits!”

  Rising to hold her hand out to her son, she waited while he hugged his grandparents

  . Then Paul took her hand, chatting about his day as they headed out to catch the bus home. Years of subsidizing her mother’s drinking habit had made it impossible for Charlie to afford a car of her own. She could borrow when she needed it, but mostly stuck to using public transport.

  Getting off the bus around the corner from the block of flats, Charlie listened absently as Paul prattled on about whatever came into his head.

  Turning the corner, Charlie saw the white van of the decorators working on the two ground floor flats. She knew her own place wouldn’t get done by the landlord, but it was at least livable. Charlie had made use of everything she had learned about decorating from Mark Smollet when she was younger. Adding in the DIY skills she had taught herself, she had managed to make the small flat reasonably pleasant.

  Charlie wondered then if Paul had followed his father into painting and decorating as a trade. He could have done anything he wanted. His grades had always been high at school. But he had seemed happiest doing something practical. She couldn’t picture him in an office. And the man in the picture she had didn’t look like one who sat at a computer all day.

  SEVEN

  Paul applied the paint to his roller and started to spread it over the wall, singing along to the track on the radio. He knew he was way off key, but didn’t care in the least. Behind him, his father hummed along to the tune too.

  With a good day’s work, they would finish this flat today, so they could start on the second in the morning. Mark had instilled in his son that all jobs should be done as quickly as possible, while still doing the work right. Dragging jobs out wasn’t Mark’s way, and nor was it Paul’s. If you got on with it, and did it right the first time, you got more work.

  “Are you playing darts tonight?” Mark asked when the song had finished.

  “Yeah, we’ve got a match on.” Paul had been a member of the darts team for nearly five years. It was really just an excuse to hang out with all his mates, though he enjoyed the competition as well. “Are you coming? It’s a home match.”

  “Maybe. What about your mum?”

  “She said she was probably coming,” Paul replied.

  Mark nodded. “I might well do then.”

  He liked having his ex-wife as his best friend. He got to enjoy some female company without being tied down with anyone. They could spend time with their son, share the pleasure of watching him compete in matches, and share the pride they both felt in him.

  With the last room painted, they started to pack up their equipment, getting it transferred to the other flat ready for an early start in the morning. If they were lucky, they might even get a bonus for getting the first flat done three days ahead of schedule, although the guy who owned the places hadn’t really seemed like the tipping type. A good recommendation could be just as lucrative though.

  Paul closed the door on the undecorated flat, and froze.

  “You’re too slow!” a female voice teased from up the stairs. The small running footsteps speeded up. Paul didn’t hear them though. He had been transported back to his childhood. How many times had Charlie taunted him like that, goading him to compete harder with her? The tone and pitch of that voice above him had been yanked straight from his memory.

  “You okay, son?” Mark asked, concerned, laying a hand on Paul’s shoulder.

  He stared at his father blankly.

  “Paul?”

  Mark’s voice finally reached him. “What?”

  “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Paul sighed. “Nothing.”

  It was just a coincidence. Charlie wouldn’t be living in a dump like this.

  Getting in his car, watching his father driving away in the van, Paul still thought about that woman’s voice. He thought about the woman he had seen the other week, the fact she’d had exactly the same colour hair as Charlie.

  But these flats were awful, pokey little places. He couldn’t imagine Steve Teasley would allow his daughter to live in such a horrible place. It simply could not be Charlie.

  Heading home for his dinner, Paul couldn’t shift the haunting tone of that voice from his head. Even though he knew it wasn’t her, something in him seemed determined to make him think it was. Maybe he should try and talk to her, face-to-face, lay that ghost to rest and move on with his life. She would probably think he was nuts though.

  “You’re quiet,” Kelly commented after watching her son do nothing but push the food around his plate and stare off into space.

  “Am I?” he responded vacantly.

  “You’ve hardly said a word since you got in.”

  Paul put his cutlery down. He wasn’t in the least bit hungry. “Do you know where Charlie’s dad lives?”

  Kelly gaped at him in surprise. He hadn’t even mentioned her in years. “No,” she answered. “I tried to find out where they’d gone after he sold his house, but I’ve got no idea where they went. Why?”

  “I saw a woman the other week that looked just like Charlie, and then today I heard someone that sound exactly like her.”

  “Where?” Kelly frowned, worried by her son’s demeanor. He didn’t
look like he was currently residing on the same planet as her.

  “At the flats where we’re working.”

  “I didn’t realize you still thought about Charlie,” she commented quietly.

  Paul sighed and looked across the table at his mother, finally ready to admit the one thing he had never told her. “I think about her all the time. I always have.”

  “For all these years?”

  “Yes.” He leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache.

  Kelly watched him worriedly. “Paul, you can’t spend your whole life living off memories. What happened between you and Charlie was years ago. It’s in the past. Let it stay there, love.”

  “Mum, you don’t understand. Charlie will never be just ‘in the past’. She’s in my head. She always has been and she always will be. There is no one else.”

  Paul rose from the table and left the room. He hadn’t planned to tell his mother that much. Charlie, his memory of her, was something he held close to his heart. She wasn’t just in his head; she was part of his soul.

  When Mark arrived in the van so he could stay the night and head straight to work in the morning, the family headed out to the village pub together.

  Paul had no interest in the darts match. He played badly, clearly not concentrating, and was soon subbed by another player.

  Mark watched his son carefully, worry creasing his brows. Paul had been out of sorts all evening. When Mark saw his son downed a second pint of beer in silence, leaning against the bar without noticing anything around him, he finally asked Kelly what the problem was.

  “He thinks Charlie is living where you’re working,” Kelly replied sadly. She had also been watching her son with concern. He definitely wasn’t himself.

  “Charlie that used to live next door to you?”

  “Yeah. He asked earlier if I knew where her father lived.”

  “Why?”

  Staring at her son, Kelly thought about how he had been with so few girls, about that fact he hadn’t seemed bothered when the one he had lived with had left him, and replied, “Because I think he’s been in love with her all this time.”

  “But she left when he was only, what, fourteen? No one falls in love at that age,” Mark responded doubtfully.

  “Well, I think Paul did. Probably before that. You know how close they were, Mark. He always seemed to come to life when she was around, like she lit him up inside.

  “I know Steve was worried about what Lisa would do if Charlie ever came to visit us, but I wish now I’d made more effort to keep in touch with them.” She closed her eyes in regret. She didn’t think she had got many things wrong while raising her son, but she was beginning to think that might have been the biggest mistake of her life. “Do you remember he asked her out the day things with Lisa all kicked off? It meant they never had a chance to see where things might go for them. She’s stuck in his head.”

  Mark studied his son, really taking in the lost, lonely look in Paul’s eyes, the dejection in his stance. “What’s he going to do?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  * * *

  As she rounded the corner with Paul, Charlie saw the decorator’s van leaving again, and then spotted her mother going in the main door of the flats.

  “Let’s go to the café for a treat,” she suddenly said to her son.

  Why couldn’t Lisa get the hint and leave them alone? She must know by now there would be no more handouts. It was weeks since Charlie had given her any money. Usually she caved in long before this, simply so her mother would leave her alone for while.

  They entered the café across the road from the flats and Charlie found a table where she could watch for her mother leaving. Getting Paul settled with a jam doughnut, his favourite treat, she cradled the mug of frothy coffee she had got for herself in her hands and hoped they wouldn’t be waiting for too long.

  Charlie made herself talk normally to her son, but she wasn’t really focused on what he was saying. Her eyes never left the door across the street.

  Finally, after nearly an hour, Lisa emerged. Charlie could see she was staggering and wondered what time that morning Lisa had started drinking. Probably before she’d even got out of bed.

  After watching her mother walking unsteadily away, she noticed the estate car that belonged to one of the decorators was still parked outside the flats. It wasn’t there every day, but often enough to have become familiar.

  Charlie could just make out the man sitting in the driver’s seat. The door was open, but he didn’t appear to be getting out. Then the door was suddenly shut and he started to reverse out of the parking space.

  Going to pay the café bill, Charlie missed seeing who the driver was.

  With the coast clear for them to go home. Charlie led her son to the pelican crossing and went home.

  After running a bath for Paul and getting him settled into bed, Charlie went to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. She would only allow herself one glass of an evening. Having an alcoholic mother had made her wary.

  It was nearly eleven, just when Charlie was thinking about heading to bed, that someone knocked on the door. She couldn’t ignore it at that time of night, thinking only something urgent would make someone call on her so late.

  As she approached the door, her mother started to complain loudly.

  “I just need a few pounds,” Lisa pleaded through the locked door.

  Charlie unlocked the door and yanked it open angrily. “You don’t get it, do?” she demanded. “There’s not going to be any more money! Ever! Have you forgotten I have a son to support?”

  Lisa suddenly looked angry too. “You can spare a bit, you selfish little slut!”

  It was definitely the last straw for Charlie. She had spent her whole life battling with this woman just to be herself. She wasn’t going to take any more abuse.

  “Fuck off and never come back! If you do, I’ll call the police. You’re not my mother, Martine is!”

  She slammed the door shut. Locked it quickly and then sagged against the wall. Although she had been expecting Lisa to kick off, there was silence outside the door. Maybe this time, Charlie had actually made herself clear.

  “Mummy?” Paul stood in his bedroom door rubbing his eyes sleepily.

  “It’s okay, honey, just someone being rude. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

  Guiding him into his room and settling him in bed, Charlie broke her strictest rule and went to pour herself a second glass of wine. She stood in the kitchen, eyes shut as she downed it almost in one go. Then she headed to bed herself.

  Picking up the picture that was now in a frame on her bedside table, Charlie studied the face of the only man she felt capable of loving and tears began to roll down her face. Holding the frame to her breast, she cried herself to sleep.

  EIGHT

  It was the last day of the job at the flats, and Mark was relieved. Paul had been so distant lately, barely engaging in any conversation at all through the day. There hadn’t been anymore incidents with the woman Paul thought might be Charlie, but the lad was so wrapped up in his own head all the time. It wasn’t healthy. Mark was glad they wouldn’t be coming back here after today.

  Picking up a pile of dust sheets to take out to the van, Mark watched his son through the window, frowning. Paul was on a different planet.

  A woman walked past Mark and went in the main door. He followed after her a few moments later.