Charlie by Lesley Pearse
‘No,’ Sylvia said and looked up at her daughter with reproachful eyes. ‘But I would have liked you to watch television with me.’
‘Mum, I can’t,’ Charlie said in despair. ‘I’ve got two hours of English to do and it’s got to be in tomorrow.’
‘Oh, please,’ Sylvia pleaded, patting the seat beside her. ‘There’s a weepy film on and we can snuggle up here together the way we used to.’
Charlie was tempted, not so much by the film itself as by the good memories her mother’s words brought back. They had spent a great many happy hours together that way once. She had almost forgotten how emotional her mother had been at sad films; perhaps it would take her out of her own problems for a while.
But she couldn’t spare the time. The homework had to be done. ‘I can’t, Mum, not tonight,’ she said.
‘All you think of is work,’ Sylvia said sulkily. ‘I’m alone all day and I want a bit of company when you come home.’
Charlie closed her eyes and counted to ten. She wanted to say that if her mother was to sort the laundry and put it in the machine, even sit and do the ironing or clean the kitchen, she’d have several free hours in a week to spend watching television. She also felt like adding that if Sylvia read books from the library instead of insisting on buying expensive magazines, cut down on smoking and didn’t put the fire on full, Charlie wouldn’t need to work so many evenings to make ends meet. But she’d said these things before and it always ended in Sylvia taking to her bed and playing ill. She couldn’t face that right now.
‘I’m not working tomorrow night, I’ll sit with you then,’ she said instead. ‘And on Saturday morning, if it’s fine, I’ll take you down into the town in the wheelchair so you can look in the shops.’
It was hell taking her mother out. On the way down the hill it took all Charlie’s strength not to let the chair run away with itself. Coming home was even worse because it was so heavy. But she was prepared to do it if it cheered her mother.
‘What’s the point? I can’t afford to buy anything,’ Sylvia retorted sulkily. ‘Oh, go on and do your homework! You think more of that school than you do of me.’
Charlie sat at her small desk and tried to blot out the sound of the television. She had an essay on Hamlet to write and although she’d planned it all mentally while she was working in the hotel kitchen that evening, now her mind was fuzzy with weariness.
She had no time for herself now. It was just school, work, and looking after her mother.
It had all looked so rosy at first. She had been welcomed back at school by both the other girls and the teachers as if she’d just returned a little late from the summer holidays. Apart from an occasional curious question no one mentioned her father’s disappearance, the attack on her mother, or even her old home.
She and June had picked up their old friendship, they even met every morning to travel together on the train. At first June used to urge her to come out dancing, she sometimes used to come round to the flat on a Saturday to play records too. But Charlie couldn’t go out dancing, she had to work Saturday nights. Now June had a boyfriend and she spent all her spare time with him. They were still friends at school, on a superficial level, but in reality they had little in common any more.
Charlie hardly ever visited Ivor in Salcombe either. On the few Sundays she’d been over there, her mother invariably sulked for days afterwards. Ivor understood, so sometimes he borrowed Beryl’s car and met Charlie in Dartmouth after school. They’d have a cup of coffee and chat, then he’d drop her home.
Last November he called at the flat quite regularly. At that time Sylvia welcomed him – he was handy for putting up shelves, moving furniture and other odd jobs. She even flirted a little with him the way she had done with men in the past. But by Christmas she was claiming he smelled funny, that he was uncouth and peculiar, and she was so offhand with him that Ivor suggested he met Charlie elsewhere.
It was very tempting to tell her mother that she smelled too. Except for the day she went to the hospital she didn’t seem to care much about her own personal hygiene any more. Charlie had hinted about it, but Sylvia didn’t respond to hints.
If it hadn’t been for school, Charlie felt she might crack. There at least she had a strong purpose. While her classmates saw the sixth form as a continuation of their social life, she saw the ’A’ levels at the end of it as a firm goal. Gone were the days she larked about, she knew her future career depended on good exam results, so she took every lesson and every piece of homework seriously.
Occasionally she’d listen to her Woodstock album and remember how she’d once yearned to be part of the youth revolution, and her main preoccupation had been boys, records and clothes. But that all seemed so long ago now. She had no money for new clothes or records, Guy had made her wary of boys, and she no longer cared about being revolutionary.
When she had time to dream, it was only of freedom. Of living alone, waking up each morning without hearing her mother coughing her lungs up, to have a job she loved, time to make friends, and to return at night to a clean flat without having to see that sour, embittered face wreathed in cigarette smoke, or hear that grating, whining voice demanding attention.
Sometimes though it shamed her to think it, let alone voice it, she wished her mother would die. At those times she cursed her father for leaving her with this terrible burden which made her think such wicked thoughts.
*
‘I’ll be home about six,’ Charlie said the following morning as she was leaving for school. Sylvia was still in bed. She took sleeping pills every night and she was always groggy in the mornings. Charlie would make her tea and help her to the bathroom, then Sylvia went back to bed until eleven or so. ‘I’m meeting Ivor after school.’
‘What do you want to see that nasty old man for?’ Sylvia asked, her once pretty face full of spite. ‘There’s something wrong with you.’
‘But for that nasty old man I would have been jobless and homeless all summer. I might also have lain on those cliffs until I died of exposure,’ Charlie said tartly.
She didn’t wait for a reply, but closed her mother’s door and promptly left the flat. It was eight o’clock, but she’d been up for two hours already, finishing the homework she was too tired to do last night. Now she was a little late and she would have to run all the way down to the ferry, or she’d miss the train from the other side of the river.
Ivor was waiting for her as she came off the ferry in the afternoon. Even though it was a very cold, windy day he wasn’t wearing a coat, just a thick oiled sweater and corduroys. Just seeing his warm smile and his untidy red hair and beard cheered her. Ivor was as constant as the tide. A true friend and her only confidant.
‘Hullo, sweetheart,’ he said with his usual welcoming if somewhat fishy-smelling hug. ‘How was school today?’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Pretty good actually. Miss Endersleigh said my essay on Hamlet was first class.’
As they walked along towards the coffee bar in Foss Street, Ivor asked about her mother.
‘Much the same,’ Charlie said. She tried to avoid discussing her mother with him. If she told the whole truth it would only worry him, so she changed the subject as soon as they were sitting down.
Ivor told her all the Salcombe gossip, including how Beryl had become a blonde. ‘It suits her,’ he said with twinkly eyes. ‘She said she was tired of being taken for my younger sister. And before I forget, she asked if you’d like to come and stay for a few days at Easter.’
‘I’d love to.’ Charlie’s eyes lit up. ‘It would be heaven.’
But then she remembered her mother and her face fell. ‘But how can I, Ivor?’
‘You can, and you should,’ he said, reaching across the table to tweak her cheek. ‘Sylvia’s perfectly capable of looking after herself for a few days. She gets a dinner brought to her, and I’m sure if you spoke to her doctor he’d arrange for the district nurse to pop in just to check on her.’
‘She’ll play il
‘Well, let her.’ He shrugged, his greeny-blue eyes sparking with indignation. ‘You and I both know you are going to leave one day. The sooner she gets used to being alone occasionally, the better she’ll cope then. Besides, if you don’t get a rest soon, you’ll get ill. And where would you be then?’
Ivor was always the voice of reason. Charlie knew he had a great deal of sympathy for Sylvia, but it was tempered with irritation that she made no effort to improve her situation. He understood and applauded Charlie’s sense of duty, but at the same time he felt it was time she stood up for herself.
‘I’ll speak to her about it,’ Charlie said.
Ivor could see she was exhausted and it twisted his stomach to see her like that. She was too thin, too pale, and there was dark circles beneath her eyes. She had lost that chic, polished look she’d once had, her hair was straggly, her school uniform hung on her. All through January and February she’d had a series of bad colds, and he suspected she didn’t eat properly. At times he wished he could storm in on her mother and tell her what he thought of her, but he knew Charlie wouldn’t like that.
‘What if I got Beryl to ask her?’ he suggested. Oddly enough Sylvia got on well with Beryl. She had called in to visit Sylvia one day soon after she came out of the nursing home, and since then she often popped in during the day while Charlie was at school.
She never stayed long, but she always took a batch of magazines with her, and with her own special brand of persuasive charm, she had got the woman to open up about many things, including her relationship with Jin, and a little about DeeDee, the other woman in his life.
It saddened Ivor to think Sylvia could talk to a comparative stranger, yet refused to talk to her daughter about anything connected with either of her parents’ past.
Beryl had gleaned that DeeDee was a strong, ambitious and very beautiful woman. She came from the East End of London originally, but had somehow managed to shed all trace of her humble beginnings, including her cockney accent. Beryl said that when Sylvia spoke of their early friendship, despite everything that had happened, it was clear she still retained admiration, even some affection, for this woman. She spoke of DeeDee bringing up her two younger brothers single-handedly, of how she took Sylvia under her wing, gave her a roof over her head, taught her how to dress, and indeed how to fleece rich men.
Beryl had told Ivor on several different occasions that she’d seen how Sylvia must have been before the dark moods Charlie spoke of took over her life – a vulnerable yet vivacious and warm woman, who cared about other people.
In Beryl’s opinion, Jin had cheated on Sylvia because her insecurity made her clingy and demanding. To her DeeDee sounded like perfect mistress material, passionate, wilful and exciting. What Beryl couldn’t understand though was why Jin, who in so many ways sounded such a decent man, could plan and execute such a cruel and devious way to leave Sylvia, or why the woman who had suffered so much because of him wouldn’t tell everything she knew. Beryl was totally convinced she did know a great deal more and that she was still, perhaps irrationally, frightened of DeeDee.
‘I can’t see Sylvia refusing Beryl,’ Ivor went on. ‘She’d be afraid Beryl would accuse her of being selfish, and stop visiting her.’
Charlie looked thoughtful. ‘It might work, it’s worth a try,’ she said, her eyes brightening a little.
‘Then I’ll suggest it,’ he said. ‘So say nothing to your mum right now.’
They spoke of Charlie’s job at the Royal Castle. Charlie made Ivor laugh with stories about what went on in the kitchens. She only did the menial tasks, preparing salads and vegetables, but her interest in cooking had taken a leap forward since she’d been there. It was when she made a weak joke about smuggling home some leftover chicken and vegetables to supplement her poor wages that Ivor wondered if she was struggling to make ends meet.
‘Are you short of money?’ he asked. ‘Because if you’re worried about a bill or something, you’ve only got to say and I’ll try and help.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘But I’m coping okay.’ Her eyes weren’t meeting his and he thought she was lying to him.
‘There is something wrong. I can tell,’ he said firmly. ‘So tell me?’
Charlie hesitated for a moment. She was worried, but not about money, she’d got used to having very little. It was the treasures buried up by ‘Windways’ which bothered her, and as each day passed she knew she had to do something about them, but she didn’t know what.
‘Come on, Charlie, tell Uncle Ivor, you know what they say about shared problems?’
Charlie decided to take the plunge. She blurted it out without drawing breath.
Ivor gave a low whistle as she finished. He hadn’t expected anything like that. ‘Well, that was a smart move, Charlie,’ he said, looking at her admiringly. He couldn’t imagine any other young girl keeping such a secret. ‘Don’t for one moment feel guilty about it, they are yours by rights. But you certainly can’t leave them there much longer. For one thing damp might get in, for another a builder or someone might find them.’
‘But what should I do with them? Should I tell Mum?’
Ivor gave this a moment’s deep thought. Judging by Charlie’s description of these items, they could be worth a great deal of money. Sylvia had long since decided that Jin had taken her jewellery, and she had everything she really needed already. In all probability, being entirely self-centred, and hardly the smartest woman in the world, she would either merely sit on them, refusing to sell even one item to relieve Charlie from the pressure of working so hard, or, more likely, she’d want to blow the lot on something very extravagant. If it was the latter, someone would find out and questions would be asked about where the money came from.
‘I don’t think you should tell her, not the way she is,’ Ivor said firmly. ‘At the moment she has her rent paid and enough money to live on quite comfortably, and you have a free place at school. All that would be in jeopardy if the Social Security found she had a nest-egg. And if they refused to give her benefits, any money from the sale of those items would soon be eaten up. I think you should find a really safe place for them. I can find out about that for you. Maybe once you’ve finished at school and got a decent job, it might be different, you could sell them then, and get a better place for your mother to live. But right now I think it’s better to keep quiet about them.’
‘But what if she accuses me later of deceiving her?’
Ivor shrugged. ‘So what, Charlie? You had the presence of mind to take these things, not for yourself, but to help her. You’ve done everything possible to make your mum comfortable and secure in these past months. She is a very lucky woman to have you caring for her. It’s time you stopped pandering to her every little whim and stood up for yourself.’
Two weeks later, in the Easter holidays, Charlie was packing a bag to go to Salcombe for a few days. Beryl had finally managed to persuade Sylvia that she could cope alone. The fridge was full of food, there was a pile of cigarette packets on the coffee table, and a selection of new magazines were sitting on her mother’s bedside table. The district nurse and their next-door neighbour had promised to pop in each day. The sun was shining outside, with a real promise that spring was finally here. Charlie even had the treasures she’d recovered from their hiding place. They were now at the bottom of her bag to be taken first to a valuer Ivor had tracked down, and then to be put in a security vault.
She was very glad to be taking them somewhere safer. She had dug them up on the first day of her holiday, and she’d been terrified that her mother might poke around in her room and find them.
It had been scary creeping through the dense bushes by ‘Windways’. As she dug them out, she had visions of someone popping their head over the wall and demanding to know what she was doing. But as there were no curtains in the front of the house and the windows hadn’t been cleaned, she thought perhaps the new owners hadn’t moved in yet.
She zipped up her
‘She’s making it up,’ Charlie told herself. ‘The minute you’ve gone she’ll be out of bed and checking to see what’s on TV. Remember what Ivor said. You have to stand up for yourself.’
Picking up her small bag, she went out into the living room and looked around her. In the week she’d been home from school she’d done some spring-cleaning and the flat looked nice again. The net curtains were snowy white, she’d washed all the cushion covers and given the carpet a shampoo. Sunshine was streaming through the front windows and at the back the view down to the river was enough to lift anyone’s spirits. A vase of daffodils on the coffee table looked cheerful and as the windows had been open for a while the room didn’t smell of smoke.
She wished her mother would learn to appreciate that it was a nice flat, and how kind the neighbours were. They were only ordinary working-class people, with enough problems of their own, yet several of them went out of their way to call in on Sylvia when she was alone.
Charlie was wearing jeans and a red sweater, but as she looked at herself in the mirror she winced. Last year her jeans had been skin-tight, now they were loose, the sweater had bobbles on it through age and constant wear, and it was so long since she’d last had her hair cut that it looked bedraggled. It crossed her mind that if Guy turned up in Salcombe for Easter he’d get a shock to see her this way.
Sighing deeply, she turned away from the mirror and put on her coat, then went in to say goodbye to her mother.
‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘How’s the turn?’