Charlie by Lesley Pearse
‘Now, what do we do when we get to your house?’ he asked a little later. ‘Do I sweep in carrying your luggage like a bell-boy, doff my cap and leave? Do I drop you outside, or do we give the dragon a hint that I’m considering the possibility of enticing you off to London before long?’
‘I think the first one, but no cap-doffing, trying too hard to please, or questions after her health.’
‘Why not?’ He faked surprise at the last request.
‘Because, simple one, she’ll bore you with the full nine yards. We’ll just say you are Beryl’s nephew, at university, you have a quick cup of tea and then you scarper. Furthermore, I warn you the flat will probably be fairly disgusting. Mum doesn’t believe in clearing up after herself.’
‘I’m glad you live in squalor at times. It’ll prepare you for my flat. That is a health inspector’s nightmare.’
‘Is there a masculine version of “slut”?’ she asked.
‘Slutter,’ he said immediately. ‘Or slutteri if one wishes to use a collective noun.’
Charlie laughed. She was going to miss Andrew a great deal, especially his sense of humour. She wondered if she really could hold out until after the exams to see him again.
As they approached Dartmouth she directed him down Townstal Road, left into the crescent and then along Mayflower Close.
Andrew gasped as he saw the panoramic view of Dartmouth and the river between a gap in the houses. ‘I was expecting you to take me somewhere grim,’ he said, slowing right down so he could see it better.
‘There are no grim places in Dartmouth,’ she said with a smile. ‘But try telling Mum that!’
The curtains in the living room at number sixteen were closed. ‘What on earth has she got them closed for? The sun isn’t that bright,’ Charlie said with some irritation as she got out the car.
‘Maybe she’s watching TV,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s Good Friday after all. There’s probably one of those creaky old films on.’
He got her bag from the car and they walked up the path together.
‘I’m back, Mum,’ Charlie called out as she opened the door. ‘I hope you’re decent because I’ve got someone with me.’
There was no reply, but that wasn’t unusual and Charlie went on in, Andrew following her. Sylvia wasn’t in the living room and it was so dark with the curtains drawn that they could see very little. Charlie swept them back and stared at the room for a minute.
It was just as she’d expected, strewn end to end with dirty cups, plates, orange peel and overflowing ashtrays.
‘Looks like home,’ Andrew said brightly.
Charlie was embarrassed, even though she had warned him what to expect.
‘Hang on a minute, she must still be in bed. I’ll just check she’s okay and I’ll make us all some tea.’ She swiftly crossed the room and went into her mother’s bedroom.
A sudden piercing scream startled Andrew. He was just going over to look at a photograph of Charlie as a baby on the mantelpiece.
‘What is it?’ he called out as he ran to her. But he stopped short in horror by the door.
Even though Andrew had never seen a dead person before, he instinctively knew the woman on the bed was, and his stomach turned over.
Her glassy blue eyes were open, staring towards the door as if she’d died hoping for help to come that way. Congealed vomit was stuck to her lips, hair and on the pillow beside her.
‘How do we tell if she’s still breathing?’ Charlie gasped out, clutching at his arm. ‘What do we do?’
Andrew pulled himself together. He nudged Charlie aside and felt for a pulse on Sylvia’s neck. There was nothing and her skin was cold. He sensed she’d been dead for some hours.
‘I’m afraid she’s dead,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m so terribly sorry, Charlie. What a terrible thing to walk in on.’ He glanced at the bedside table. An empty aspirin bottle was there, also another bottle with a few tablets left inside it. ‘I think she might have taken those. I’ll have to call the police, don’t touch anything while I’m gone.’
‘She can’t be dead,’ Charlie burst out, grabbing his arm as he turned to go out the room. ‘She was fine when I phoned her last night.’
Andrew felt utterly helpless. This was so totally unexpected, and nothing in his life so far had prepared him for such a situation. He was frightened and horrified, but above that was anger. He couldn’t credit that any mother could do such a thing, knowing her daughter would find her. Yet he could voice none of this. He had to be strong, do what had to be done and look after Charlie.
‘Just hold on,’ he said, squeezing both her hands. ‘I have to phone the police first. I’ll be right back.’
As Andrew went to the phone in the living room, Charlie looked down at her mother in horror. She felt she ought to be wailing, feeling nothing but abject grief, yet she could only feel repelled and disgusted. It wasn’t because Sylvia was caked in putrid-smelling vomit, Charlie had coped with far worse than that in the past. It was because she was looking at the ultimate act of selfishness.
Yet even as she stood there, dry-eyed and angry, a small voice inside her reminded her that less than two years ago she herself had thought of suicide as a way out. The same voice also insisted that she was to blame for this. She shouldn’t have just accepted her mother’s depression, she ought to have insisted the doctor did something more to help her. Nor should she have gone away to Salcombe and left her mother alone.
Yet worse still, the thought crossed her mind that she was now free.
The callousness of such a thought cut her to the quick. She dropped down on her knees beside the bed and taking her mother’s cold hand in hers, she sobbed.
Charlie knew both the policemen who came in answer to Andrew’s call for help by sight. They drank in the bar of the Royal Castle Hotel quite often. The older one she knew as Roger often inquired after her mother because he’d been one of the officers who’d come in answer to the 999 call when Sylvia was attacked.
There was little they could do but confirm Sylvia was dead and offer their condolences. Roger stayed on with her and Andrew while they waited for the doctor to arrive.
Charlie stood at the window long after the ambulance containing her mother’s body had driven away. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t speak. She felt numb.
‘Come and sit down and have this cup of tea,’ Andrew said gently at her elbow. ‘I’m going to clear up all the mess, then I’m taking you back to Beryl’s. You can’t stay here.’
Charlie did as she was told. She felt like a robot obeying instructions mindlessly. She looked at the overflowing ashtray on the coffee table and began counting the stubs.
It was some time before she fully appreciated what Andrew was doing. Only the sound of running water in the bathroom made her realize he was swilling the vomit off the sheets and blankets in the bath. Somehow that kind and thoughtful act soothed her a little. If Andrew hadn’t come in with her today, how would she have coped?
As Andrew rinsed out the sheets and blankets he sniffed back tears. Just early this morning he’d been thinking how meeting Charlie was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was so lovely, both in looks and character. Everything she’d told him about her background intrigued him, yet somehow he hadn’t felt sorry for her, she was too bright, jolly and vivid somehow to bring out sympathy. When he’d kissed her yesterday on the beach, it had felt like the first warm day of spring, Fireworks Night, birthdays and Christmas all rolled into one. He’d had quite a few girlfriends, some of them he’d even been a bit soppy about, but with Charlie it was different, he wanted her passionately. Last night in bed he’d imagined seducing her, getting the other guys to go out one night, changing the sheets on his bed, planning the right soft music. He hadn’t been able to sleep for his erection, and that seemed terribly shameful now.
Everything about finding her mother like that, this flat, and the ambulance men carting her away to the mortuary for a post-mortem, underlined the bleakness of Charlie?
His own childhood and adolescence looked so idyllic in comparison. His father might only be a sheet-metal worker, his mother a very ordinary woman, yet their life revolved around their only son. He had only to walk through the door and they stopped whatever they were doing to hear his news. His bed was always aired and ready for him, Mum cooked his favourite meals to please him. Charlie might have been spoiled in the material sense as a child, but Andrew could see now that while he might have felt overlooked because he never got a new bike or roller-skates, he had enough love for several children.
Where would he and Charlie go from here? How could he even consider trying to court a girl who’d just suffered such a terrible shock? She might be free now, but neither of them could take any pleasure in freedom which had been acquired at such cost. What should he do or say? The only death he’d ever encountered before was his grandfather’s, and that had been a neat, clean release for a sick old man who was ready to go. He couldn’t begin to think what it would be like for her. Or how to tell her he would be there for her whatever she needed.
He wrung out the bedding as best he could and went back into the living room. Charlie was still sitting in the same place, her face stripped of any colour.
‘Why didn’t Mum tell me last night that she was desperate?’ she asked him. ‘She sounded so normal when I phoned. I would have come home if she’d asked me.’
‘I’m quite sure she knew that,’ Andrew replied. He didn’t even know if it was appropriate to try to hold her in his arms. ‘I think you have to accept that she’d already made her mind up to do this, and she really wanted to die.’
‘But why? Things hadn’t got any worse for her recently, in fact they were getting better.’
Andrew had no answer to that, he was out of his depth entirely. His parents were the kind of people who totally accepted their lot in life, finding their reward in seeing their only son at university, having enough money for a holiday and a bit put by for a rainy day. Even if they did have some sort of disaster, or even found they had a terminal disease, he doubted very much that either of them would consider suicide.
In the last couple of days, listening to what had happened to Charlie had already brought home to him how cloistered he was. He’d never faced any serious problems or heartache. Andrew liked to think he was humane and understanding, but as he hadn’t met Sylvia Weish alive, and almost everything he’d been told about her led him to believe he wouldn’t have felt much sympathy for her, he found he couldn’t be objective.
‘Who knows what goes on in someone else’s mind?’ He shrugged. ‘It could be that she was thinking you’d have a better future without her around.’
‘She never thought about my future.’ Charlie’s voice began to rise with a touch of hysteria. ‘This was intended to frighten me. She thought she’d just be unconscious when I got home and I’d get her to hospital to pull her round.’
‘I don’t think so, Charlie,’ he said, kneeling down beside her and taking her hands in his. ‘The doctor said he thought she took the pills around ten last night. She took well over a lethal dose, and she knew you wouldn’t be back until midday.’
‘She was cruel and spiteful.’ Charlie began rocking herself in the chair. ‘She never thought about me, just herself. Now I’ve got to carry on with people whispering again behind my back. I don’t think I can stand any more.’
‘You can, Charlie, you can,’ he said, putting his arms around her and drawing her to him. ‘You’re all mixed up now, you will be for some time I expect. But I know from what my aunt told me that you’ve got no reason to feel guilty. She said you did far more for your mother than they would have done in a nursing home.’
‘But I’ve wished her dead, lots of times,’ Charlie said in a whisper. ‘Can you believe I could be that wicked?’
‘I think I would too if I had to put up with everything you have,’ he said truthfully. ‘But you still looked after her – if this hadn’t happened you would have gone on doing so.’
Charlie broke down then and cried for her sad, weak mother who chose death rather than try to make a new life for herself, and because she hadn’t seen this coming and found some way to avert it. Andrew sat down beside her and held her tightly in his arms until her sobbing finally subsided.
‘Come on now,’ he said gently. ‘Go and wash your face while I finish clearing up, then we’ll go. I’ll put the sheets and blankets in a bag and take them back to Beryl’s to wash them properly.’
‘I can’t stay there,’ she said in alarm. ‘It wouldn’t be right. I must be here in case the police need me.’
‘They won’t need you today,’ he said. ‘I told the police I was taking you back to Salcombe. Right now you need looking after.’
‘Is she asleep?’ Beryl asked Andrew as he came back down into the bar just after closing time that night. Ivor was sitting on a stool nursing a pint. He looked forlorn.
Andrew nodded. He felt very shaky and disturbed after listening to Charlie talking about her childhood.
It seemed to him that while Jin appeared to be the more caring parent, his habit of turning each visit home into almost a circus of indulgence, then suddenly leaving again, was in fact the most harmful force in Charlie’s young life. She’d put her father on a pedestal, subconsciously blaming her mother for his departures. Yet in fact Sylvia had needed him there even more than her child.
Beryl poured him a large brandy. ‘You look as if you need it,’ she said. ‘And I’ll join you because I want to blot out the appalling things which keep happening to that poor kid.’
The last of the straggling drinkers left and as Andrew sat down beside Ivor, the older man turned to him, his face deeply concerned.
‘Drink up, son. You look shattered,’ he said.
Andrew downed the brandy in one and grimaced as the spirits burned his throat. ‘I was wondering if it might be better if I went back to London tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Beryl exclaimed. ‘You can’t go now, Charlie would think you were running out on her.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ Andrew sighed. ‘But she’s so very upset and I’m worried that she’ll regret blurting out so much to me later.’
‘It’s a darn sight more healthy for her to talk than keep it bottled up, son.’ Ivor shrugged. ‘Of course there’s a chance she might regret it later, but I think it’s far more likely to make a stronger bond between the two of you. What you’ve got to ask yourself right now is whether you want that.’
‘I do,’ Andrew replied, looking Ivor straight in the eye.
Ivor felt a lump come up in his throat. He’d met Andrew many times before while he was staying with his aunt for holidays – even as a twelve-year-old he’d been a bright and amusing lad, so he’d been delighted when he felt the mutual attraction between him and Charlie. But it was only today that he’d seen Andrew had grown into a caring, deeply sensitive man, and he’d won Ivor’s respect. ‘Well, that’s settled then,’ he said crisply. ‘No more talk of going back to London.’
‘Hullo, sweetheart! There’s a surprise,’ Ivor exclaimed as he answered a tentative knock on his door and found Charlie standing there.
It was the following Thursday, six days since her mother’s death, and the funeral was arranged for tomorrow afternoon.
‘I felt I had to come out and get some fresh air,’ she said. ‘But once I was out I didn’t know where to go.’
Ivor knew exactly what she meant. He’d been like that after Sarah and Kim were killed. There was only so much aimless wandering one could do, and always the fear of running into someone who’d ask questions you couldn’t cope with.
‘Well, I’m glad you came here,’ he said. ‘And so’s Minnie.’ Minnie was already sniffing around Charlie’s legs, but because she sensed something was wrong, she wasn’t jumping up as she usually did
Charlie sat down in her usual chair, and Minnie sat beside her, resting her chin on Charlie’s knee and looking at her mournfully.
Ivor watched Charlie petting his dog and wondered what he should say. Her face was set like pale concrete, cold and distant. He guessed she was wrung out with crying, talking, listening to platitudes, advice and sympathy. Maybe what she needed now was just peace to gather her own thoughts. He made her a cup of his special coffee and added a little rum, then sat down beside her and lit his pipe.
‘If I hadn’t been forced to get up each day to make the funeral arrangements and do all the other stuff like registering the death and telling the Council and the Social Security what’s happened, I think I would have stayed in bed all this week,’ she said eventually, and the eyes which turned towards him were bleak.
‘It wouldn’t hurt you to have a day in bed,’ he said. ‘After the funeral tomorrow you’ll be able to.’
‘You’re the first person to even mention afterwards,’ she said. ‘What am I supposed to do, Ivor? I don’t know.’
Ivor’s eyes prickled at her question. He knew from his own experience that would be the real test of her character. ‘You try to pick up where you left off,’ he said gently. ‘You go back to school and prepare for those final exams. You’ll get money each week from Social Security to keep you, so you mustn’t worry about that. By the time the exams are over, you’ll have your head straight again and then you can decide what you want to do. Are you nervous about staying in the flat alone?’
‘No, not really,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘But it will be strange, won’t it?’
Ivor agreed it probably would be and maybe very lonely. ‘You can come over here every weekend if you want to,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure Andrew will want to come down and see you.’