Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

  The woman had never been a friend, in fact over the years Sylvia had given Diana the distinct impression she considered her to be on the same social level as Mrs Brown, the Weishes’ housekeeper. She might have crushed knees, but there was nothing to stop her asking for the telephone trolley in the hospital, or writing a letter to say she appreciated Diana and Herbert taking Charlie in.

  For someone who had always prided herself on being so correct, it was insufferably insolent to expect a neighbour to take responsibility for a teenage girl indefinitely, to say nothing of offering some money for her keep. University professors were not very well paid, and she and Herbert had three children of their own to feed.

  Charlie wasn’t any trouble, even if she did have fancy ideas about having a bath and clean clothes every day and couldn’t so much as make a pot of tea without supervision. But she and her problems were putting a strain on the whole household. Herbert was getting increasingly nervous since one of the policemen had told him Jin had once owned Soho night-clubs; he thought the man was most likely involved with organized crime. He was afraid too that the men who attacked Sylvia might storm into his house for Charlie as well.

  June was fed up too because Charlie wasn’t any fun any longer. She wanted her bedroom back to herself, and she was jealous because Charlie’s clothes were nicer than hers. She and the two younger ones had been very rude many times, purely because they knew their mother wouldn’t give them a clip round the ear while they had company. On top of that they were going on holiday in a week’s time. Were they supposed to squeeze Charlie in the car too, and pay for her food and accommodation for a fortnight?

  But aside from all these considerations, Charlie unnerved Diana. Until she came here to stay, she had seemed an ideal friend for June. Charlie’s confidence had brought shy June out of herself, she helped her with her schoolwork, and she was so well-mannered and intelligent that she and Herbert had never had a moment’s anxiety that their daughter might be led astray.

  But now, in the light of all this trouble, Charlie seemed to pose some kind of threat. The girl’s dark eyes were on Diana constantly, making her feel as if she was under close and critical observation. Charlie rarely showed her feelings, never took Diana into her confidence and remained unnaturally cool and polite. Herbert said this was just her nature, being Chinese, but that didn’t make it any easier to live with.

  While Diana wasn’t heartless enough to push Charlie out, it had occurred to her that once she found a job it might be fairly easy to suggest she found new lodgings too. Now that hope was dashed.

  *

  Upstairs Charlie slunk into the bathroom to have a cry. Even though Mrs Melling had been very nice, she sensed the woman’s disappointment that she hadn’t come back with a job. Then when Charlie went into the bedroom to find June, she studiously ignored her and went on reading a book. Once she would have tackled her friend openly about why she was being so nasty, but she knew why it was. June had spent most of her life basking in Charlie’s limelight. Suddenly there was no limelight, only dark shadows, and June was afraid she’d be ostracized as well if she stood by her. Perhaps, too, it was a way of getting back at Charlie for all the times she’d felt second-rate.

  But understanding why June had turned against her was the last straw after all the other humiliation she’d had today.

  In one café she went into to inquire about a job the man there had said, Sorry, we don’t have an opium den upstairs. That was his idea of a little joke. In the Royal Castle Hotel the housekeeper had said, I couldn’t take you on, dear, you’d be too much of a liability. Charlie had to suppose she meant that men might come after her with iron bars. But the most crushing remark of the day had been from the ice-cream man in his kiosk on the harbour. He actually had a sign up saying ‘Help needed’ and when she’d offered her help he said, You could make more money stripping, love. Can’t your dad give you a job in one of his clubs?

  Mr Wyatt had only said her father once owned night-clubs, it had been her mother who had revealed what that really meant. So how did all these other people find out so soon? She’d never be able to hold her head up in Dartmouth again.

  Two days later, on a hot sunny afternoon, Charlie was scouring nearby Salcombe for a job. She was now so desperate she was prepared to do absolutely anything, however awful, just to get out of Dartmouth.

  The previous day she’d tried Paignton, this morning she’d tried Kingsbridge, but although she didn’t feel her failure to find a job was due to her father in either of these places, merely that students had beaten her to it, that didn’t make her feel any better.

  Yet she couldn’t help feeling optimistic here in Salcombe as it had always been her favourite place from childhood. It was sleepier than Dartmouth, kind of dreamy quaint with its pretty little harbour and dear little cottages. She knew she looked nice in her white sleeveless mini-dress. Someone must need her here.

  Three hours on, however, Charlie was thoroughly dispirited and on the point of going home again, when she called into a sweet shop in Fore Street to buy an ice-cream. She had tried all the hotels, restaurants, cafés and shops, but no one needed any staff. As she bought her ice-cream she told the chatty old lady behind the counter her problem. The old lady said she knew Ivor Meeks wanted help in his fishing tackle shop on the harbour, but added that he really wanted a boy.

  Charlie didn’t think it sounded the least bit hopeful, especially as she knew absolutely nothing about fishing, but she thought she might as well give it a try anyway.

  The harbour was surprisingly quiet for such a hot day. A couple of small boys were sitting on the wall throwing stones into the sea, an elderly couple were sitting on a bench eating ice-cream, watching a few seagulls fight over scraps of fish; but apart from them, the only other person about was a big red-headed, bearded man sitting on an upturned tub smoking a pipe, a black and white dog sitting beside him. Even though the name ‘Meeks’ didn’t fit his appearance, she thought it must be the man she was looking for.

  If she had been a tourist she might very well have photographed him because he looked so at one with his surroundings. His bushy beard was as fiery as his hair and his upturned nose gave him an almost Dickensian comical air. As she got closer she saw his huge arms were covered in tattoos. He wore baggy shapeless shorts almost to his knees and a kind of loose, smock-like top made of canvas. It was impossible to guess his age, he was as timeless as the harbour.

  She didn’t see how anyone could call his place a shop. It was just a wooden shack. Fishing rods, children’s buckets and spades and rubber rings hung outside, and a dilapidated sign claimed ‘Boats for Hire. Mackerel Fishing. Bait and Fishing Tackle’.

  Charlie was aware the man was watching her as she approached him. She blushed because she sensed he was amused by the way the cobbled path was making her teeter on her platform sandals.

  ‘Are you Mr Meeks?’ she asked when she was some ten yards from him.

  ‘That’s me,’ he said in a booming voice. ‘What can I do for you, my dear? You don’t look the kind to want a bit of bait. Let me guess, you want a pair of shoes you can really walk in?’

  Charlie giggled. Although she was so dispirited and weary and she doubted very much that he would give her a job, it was nice to meet someone jolly, and a touch of her old boldness came back.

  ‘No. I want a job, please,’ she said cheekily. ‘I hear you need someone to mind your shop.’

  ‘Well, you’d make it prettier, my dear,’ he said, rolling his Rs in a rich Devonshire accent. ‘But I can’t see you putting those dainty hands in amongst my maggots.’

  ‘I’m not squeamish,’ she said, giving him her best and most vivid smile. ‘Go on, give me a try?’

  He looked appraisingly at her for a moment, his eyes were greeny-blue like the sea, beautiful eyes for such an odd-looking man.

  ‘Right then, try putting some in a bag,’ he said. ‘The tub’s just inside.’

  Charlie had always enjoyed a challenge and rarely backe
d down from a dare. Without any hesitation she stepped up into the shack. After the bright sunshine it was dark inside, but she smelled the maggots even before she saw them. It was a horrible pungent smell, far worse than rotting meat, and she gagged. She was backing away in disgust, but something halted her. ‘Do it,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Show him!’

  Holding her breath, she advanced on the tub.

  It was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen, millions of yellowy maggots all squirming and heaving. She felt her breakfast coming up, but she fought against it.

  ‘Where are the bags?’ she called out, holding her nose.

  ‘By the side of the tub, the scoop’s in there with them,’ he replied and smiled to himself because he was sure she’d come running out any minute.

  She took a paper bag first, opened it wide and then transferred it to her left hand. Hesitantly she reached down into the tub, her hand wavering as there were maggots all over the wooden handle. She flicked the handle with her fingers so they fell off, then, holding her breath, dug into the stinking, squishy mass.

  As she tipped the contents of the scoop into the bag, a couple of maggots fell against her fingers. It was all she could do not to drop the entire thing and run out screaming.

  Dropping the scoop back into the tub, she bravely gave the top of the bag a quick twist as she might a bag of sweets, then turned out into the fresh air.

  ‘There we are,’ she said, handing them to Mr Meeks.

  Ivor Meeks was flabbergasted. All day throughout the summer months he saw scores of pretty girls around the harbour. They came with their parents, with boyfriends and with groups of other girls, but whether they were sailing enthusiasts, city girls down on holiday or even country girls, there were few that weren’t utterly repelled by maggots. He couldn’t count the times girls had run out of his shack squealing; he remembered how one high-spirited young lad had once put a handful down the back of a girl’s dress and she’d been so terrified Ivor had thought she might have heart failure.

  He knew this girl was equally horrified by them and he was intrigued as to why she’d go to such lengths in order to impress him. Her white dress looked like an expensive one, so why should a girl who came from a comfortable background want a job working for him?

  Her looks intrigued him even more. He didn’t think both her parents were Chinese, her almond eyes were too open and she didn’t have flat cheekbones. She reminded him of the Anglo-Chinese girls he’d seen in Malaya and Hong Kong. He had to find out more about her before he sent her on her way.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said, pulling up a stool for her. He turned around and tossed the maggots back in the tub.

  ‘My name is Charlie Weish. I’m sixteen and I need a job desperately because my mother’s ill in hospital,’ she blurted out without drawing breath. ‘I’ll work hard, I promise.’

  ‘Charlie’s a boy’s name,’ he said with a smile, sitting down again.

  ‘It was intended to be Cha-Lee,’ she said, breaking up the syllables. ‘Cha is tea, a revered plant in China, Lee a family name, with a hyphen in between. But my parents got tired of explaining how it should be spelt so they changed it to the English version. Dad had already shortened his family name Wei Shi to Weish anyway, when he first came to England.’

  Ivor nodded. ‘Well, Charlie, I’m sorry about your mum and I’m sure you would work hard. But I can’t take on a girl. I need a lad that knows about fishing and boats. A pretty little thing like you should be in a hotel or a shop. Go on up to the Marine Hotel. They might have something.’

  ‘I’ve already tried there, and everywhere,’ she said. ‘Oh, please give me a try. I pick things up really quickly, I can learn about fishing and boats. I wasn’t scared of the maggots. And I’m strong too.’

  Ivor looked at her long slender legs, her arms no bigger than bean sprouts and her carefully manicured nails. He couldn’t for one moment imagine her being strong enough to secure his boat in a high wind, or tough enough to deal with the many difficult customers he got in the high season.

  ‘I’m sorry, you just aren’t suitable, my dear,’ he said, wishing he hadn’t teased her by making her scoop up the maggots.

  Charlie had bitten back tears of disappointment many times in the last two days, but this time she couldn’t stop them. She was so tired, dreading going back to the Mellings’ again, and she hadn’t the first idea where to go from here.

  Ivor was alarmed when her face crumpled and tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘There’s no need for tears,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t like working here anyway. It’s good on a nice sunny day like today, but quite different in the rain and wind. Now you run along home, something will turn up for you. Where is your home anyway?’

  She didn’t answer, but covered her face with her hands, and Ivor thought she could be a runaway.

  He had met a few runaways over the years. Mostly boys that had got themselves into trouble in London then hitchhiked down to Devon with the romantic idea of getting jobs crewing on boats and the like. Almost all of them had got themselves into worse, trouble while they were here. He’d befriended one once who had then skipped off the first time he took a party out fishing, taking the day’s takings with him and leaving the shack open for anyone to help themselves to his stock.

  The thought of any young girl sleeping rough, at the mercy of any unscrupulous man, frightened him. He felt compelled to do something, even if it was only to find out the truth about her and march her along to the police station.

  ‘Sit down here,’ he said, indicating a small stool beside him. ‘And tell me the whole truth about yourself, Charlie,’ he said gruffly. ‘If you aren’t prepared to do that, then clear off right now.’

  ‘He’s a tough old bugger’ was a phrase often said of Ivor Meeks by the locals. Except for a few short weeks in summer when he made a few bob from tourists, and sat in the sun on the harbour puffing on his pipe, only the most foolish or romantically inclined would look at him in envy. His tiny cottage behind the shack had no comforts, it was a cold, damp place, battered by wind and sea spray. His life was hard, he took his small boat out in all winds and weathers, and the catches of fish, crabs and lobsters were sometimes barely enough to pay for his nightly drinks in the Victoria Inn.

  He was something of a paradox, a loner whose brusque manner and somewhat frightening appearance didn’t win him many new friends. But those who had had some reason to get a little closer to him discovered to their surprise that he had an underlying gentleness; he was a compassionate man who could be counted on in times of trouble. As such he was accepted by the community, and in the absence of any confirmation about his past, colourful rumours abounded about him, and he’d won his place in people’s affections for being an eccentric.

  Ivor was born in Plymouth in 1912, one of seven children, their father a fisherman. He married Sarah in 1933 when he was twenty-one and a year later their son John was born, followed later by a daughter, Kim. Life was extremely hard for them, they were very poor, the two rooms they lived in were damp and cold and when John died at only three from diphtheria, Ivor became fiercely determined to do better for his wife and daughter, so he sent them back to Sarah’s parents in Lynmouth and joined the merchant navy.

  He had had only two years at sea making good money to send home to Sarah and Kim when war broke out. Like so many men of his class and background he felt compelled to fight for his country, so he joined up in the Royal Navy.

  After the war he went back to join Sarah and Kim in Lynmouth. Sarah’s father had died a couple of years earlier, and now with people from the war-torn cities wanting holidays in picturesque seaside villages, Sarah and her mother were embarking on a plan to take in paying guests. For Ivor, however, things were not so rosy; he soon discovered that if he went back to fishing, with no boat of his own, he could only expect to scrape a living from the sea. With a long-term plan in mind for making enough money to buy his own boat and extend his mother-in-law’s cottage to make room for more gues
ts, he signed up in the merchant navy again.

  The years between 1946 and 1954 were happy ones for all of them, despite the long separations while he was at sea. Kim was a delightful child, she had inherited Ivor’s red hair and Sarah’s sweet nature and she grew into a pretty and confident young woman. When Ivor was home between trips to Australia, China and India he took her fishing and sailing with him, and their close, warm relationship was something Ivor valued above all else. As the family nest egg grew, Ivor promised that in two more years he would come home for good, and he and Sarah discussed having another child.

  But this dream was cruelly shattered. In January 1955, when Sarah was only thirty-eight and Kim nineteen, they were killed. Mown down by a lorry as they walked down the hill into Lynmouth one icy afternoon.

  Ivor was on his way back from America when he received the news, and the funeral was delayed until his return. Sarah’s mother died just three weeks later – her heart gave out from the trauma of losing her beloved daughter and granddaughter. Ivor had no wish to go on living either; he was forty-three, his wife and daughter had been his whole life, and without them he could see no future. He went back to Plymouth and fishing, but his bitterness and the tendency to fight anyone when he’d had a drink lost him the last friends he had there.

  Ivor was in a low state when he finally arrived in Salcombe in the summer of ’56. He had moved from one fishing village to another, getting drunk and fighting in each one. All the money he’d saved was gone, and he felt in his heart that he was finished. But fate took him in hand. Joseph Fear, the old man who then owned the cottage and fishing tackle shack, recognized Ivor as a wounded man who needed help and as he too needed assistance with his business, he offered him a job and a roof over his head.

  There was a great deal of gossip in Salcombe that summer about the big, surly, red-headed man living with Joseph Fear. Many people feared that Joseph, who was over seventy, was losing his mind letting a stranger into his home. But as time went by they were reassured. Ivor cared for Joseph when he was sick, he repaired the shack and Joseph’s fishing boat. It was he who worked while the old man sat and watched.