Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I don’t know if I can cope with that,’ she blurted out.

  ‘Andrew is a sensitive lad,’ he said carefully. ‘He’ll know better than to push you too hard. But if you’d rather he stayed away until you feel able to cope again, then you must tell him. He’ll understand.’

  ‘But will he? Isn’t he more likely to be dreadfully hurt and think I don’t care about him?’ she whispered. She was so confused. One minute she wanted to be alone, then when she was, she got scared. Her heart said she wanted Andrew as a lover, yet her body and mind were shying away from it. At times she thought she was getting as crazy as her mother. ‘You see, I couldn’t bear to lose him, Ivor, he’s the only good thing which has happened in a long time.’

  Ivor thought it was time for plain speaking. ‘I don’t believe you will lose him, he cares too deeply about you, Charlie. But at the same time it isn’t right to string him along with promises you don’t know you can keep. Admit you are confused right now. Tell him you need time to sort out your feelings and in the meantime he must go back to London and pick up his life too.’

  Ivor saw her face tighten. He guessed she was afraid Andrew might meet someone else while she was down here all alone. He wished he could promise her that wouldn’t happen.

  ‘You have to trust,’ he said gently. ‘Not just Andrew, but your own judgement too. It will come right in the end.’

  She bent over Minnie to stroke her and Ivor sensed she was trying to hide tears. He wished he could find the right words to convince her that the sun would shine on her again, that one day soon she’d wake up to find the hurt was gone. But he knew only too well that would be a long time coming.

  At four the following afternoon Charlie and Beryl were in the kitchen at Mayflower Close. Sylvia’s funeral had taken place two hours earlier, first the service at St Saviour’s in Dartmouth, then on to the burial at Longcross cemetery. The few people who had come back to the flat afterwards had now gone, and they were washing the last of the dishes. Ivor and Andrew were in the living room.

  ‘The Mellings are nice people,’ Beryl said more brightly than she felt. ‘You heard what Diana said, didn’t you? That you must go and have tea with them at least once a week.’

  ‘Yes, I heard,’ Charlie sighed. ‘It was very nice of her. Now, stop worrying about me, Beryl. I am okay, really I am.’

  Beryl was worried. She had never before attended such an emotionless funeral. Even Charlie had remained dry-eyed, straight-backed and composed throughout it.

  It hadn’t helped that the vicar had never actually met Sylvia. When he spoke of her fortitude in the face of her disability it sounded as if he had mixed up his notes with those of another person. Beryl was appalled too by how quickly afterwards some of the people scuttled away. She thought if they had that little interest in Charlie’s welfare, they might as well not have bothered to attend at all.

  Mr and Mrs Melling and their daughter June came back for tea, along with Mrs Brown, Sylvia’s old housekeeper, and Reg the gardener. They at least had shown genuine concern and affection for Charlie. Yet Beryl couldn’t help but think, if it hadn’t been for the neighbours from this road, herself, Ivor and Andrew, to give some semblance of mourners, it would have been a very sorry affair.

  ‘I wasn’t so much worried as wanting to get some sort of response from you,’ Beryl said sharply. ‘It’s not good for you to keep everything inside.’

  Charlie shrugged. Her eyes gave nothing away. ‘What is there to say, Beryl? What a shame a few more people didn’t come? Why did Mr Wyatt leg it off so quickly? It’s about what I expected.’

  ‘Is it?’ Beryl was surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘In fact I expected less. If the staff from Franklin House had come back here I wouldn’t have known what to say to them, they didn’t get on with Mum after all. All the people I hoped might come, like the Mellings, Reg and Mrs Brown, managed it. That’s enough for me.’

  ‘You’re being very stoic,’ Beryl said.

  ‘I’d call it resigned,’ Charlie said. ‘My parents’ friends were the fair-weather kind and if any of them had turned up after all this time and sobbed their way through her funeral I’d have wanted to punch them. And if you really want to know what I feel now, it’s just relief that it’s all over.’

  Beryl thought that was perhaps a little too honest.

  ‘Don’t look like that,’ Charlie said indignantly. ‘You wanted to know what was going on inside my head. And that’s it. Now I just want to be on my own and think things through.’

  Beryl had always admired Charlie’s dignity and control of her emotions. She had been at least thirty before she’d come even close to being poised. Yet today Charlie’s control had been chilling rather than admirable. Even the black roll-neck sweater and long skirt she’d chosen to wear gave her a forbidding appearance. She was too elegant, too adult. Beryl pulled herself up sharply and decided she must say what was on her mind.

  ‘You might think it’s a bit odd, and a bit late for me to say this now. But I liked Sylvia,’ she said bluntly. ‘I didn’t approve of the way she leaned on you, but I actually liked her for herself. I’m telling you this now, Charlie, because as far as I can see there isn’t anyone else to speak out for her.’

  Charlie looked staggered. She leaned back against the kitchen sink and folded her arms across her chest. ‘You only met her a few times!’

  ‘I came to see her nearly every week since you moved in here,’ Beryl said sharply. ‘I should imagine that amounts to some sixty or more visits. I didn’t tell you how often I came, because Sylvia didn’t want me to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You of all people should know how secretive she was!’ Beryl half smiled: she had Charlie’s full attention at last. ‘Do you want to know what we talked about?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I do.’ Charlie pulled out a stool and sat down. ‘I can’t imagine what you had in common.’

  Beryl shrugged. ‘Sometimes it’s opposing viewpoints which make for a stimulating friendship. I’ve seen a great deal of life, but only from a safe viewpoint across the bar. Now, your mother experienced first-hand just about everything anyone could throw at her. I know she told you about her childhood and the tragic events when she was thrown out of her first job, but you and I, Charlie, can only empathize to a certain degree with that terrible ordeal. Neither of us knows what it’s like to be raped, lose a baby, or to be that hungry and neglected. You can say you know how it feels to have your mother commit suicide, but not those other things.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll go along with that,’ Charlie said. ‘So what did you gather from her?’

  ‘I’d say her biggest problem was that she actually believed herself to be utterly worthless,’ Beryl said emphatically. ‘To make up for this she became like a chameleon, changing colour to suit the people she became involved with. DeeDee was one of the strongest influences.’

  ‘I should think she was, she stole Dad away!’

  ‘I’m talking about long before she met him,’ Beryl said. ‘From what I gathered Sylvia was just a little grey mouse, hiding herself away until then. DeeDee took her in hand, showed her how to dress, style her hair, made her over if you like. Sylvia said she was the first real friend she’d ever had, she made her believe she could amount to something. They had a great many good times together and it was she who introduced her to night-clubs.’

  Charlie sniffed disapprovingly.

  Beryl looked at her sharply. ‘Do you want me to tell you my views on your mother or not?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ’Well, as I see it she tried to emulate DeeDee, made herself seem equally tough, bold and ruthless. But then when she met and fell in love with Jin, she changed again. She kept the glamour, but she became softer, generous, warm-hearted, and ambitious for him. I have no doubt that she was the driving force that made your father a successful businessman, Charlie, she’d learned a great deal from hard-headed DeeDee.

  ‘Then when you were born, so was anot
her Sylvia, a loving mother, dedicated wife. It’s my belief that those early days in your childhood were the happiest, most fulfilling times of all for her.’

  ‘She didn’t seem happy to me,’ Charlie retorted.

  ‘She was,’ Beryl assured her. ‘I might not have known her then, but when she talked about that period in her life she glowed. There had been the hiccup when she found out about Jin’s affair with DeeDee, but they moved down to Devon and it was all forgotten. Everything was fine right up till when you were about eleven. If you look back carefully I’m sure you’ll have some memories of events at that time. She took you up to London for a shopping trip and you stayed in a hotel in Kensington.’

  Charlie shook her head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You may in a while, because that was when she found out DeeDee was still in your father’s life,’ Beryl said. ‘I’m not going to go into that now, we can talk that through at some more appropriate time. All I’ll say now is that was the time when things began to turn sour.’

  Charlie frowned. She wanted to know more, but she sensed Beryl had started on this tack for another purpose than throwing light on the past.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged.

  Beryl shrugged. ‘I just felt that I couldn’t let this day end without saying my piece about your mum. Sylvia was difficult, impossible sometimes, neurotic, selfish and often mean-spirited. But when you are thinking about her tonight, as I know you will, remember that chameleon. She had become like that because of circumstances. It was the only defence she had.’

  All at once Charlie understood what Beryl was trying to do. The kindly woman had been distressed all day because no one, not even her daughter, had recalled any happy memories of Sylvia. All at once Charlie felt ashamed, and she stumbled across the kitchen to the older woman’s arms.

  ‘She did love you,’ Beryl whispered as she stroked Charlie’s hair. ‘She wasn’t much good at showing it. But she often told me how she felt and I saw that love and pride in her eyes, the sorrow that she felt because she couldn’t express it.’

  Andrew came into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw the women embracing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning to go.

  ‘It’s okay, Andrew,’ Beryl said. In her heart she knew Sylvia had killed herself to release her daughter from the burden of looking after her. She couldn’t tell Charlie that, not now, it would be too disturbing, but perhaps in time the girl would come to see it for herself and appreciate it was done out of love for her, rather than self-interest. ‘We’re done here now, aren’t we, Charlie?’

  Charlie lifted her head, sniffed and wiped away her tears. ‘I think perhaps you all ought to go now,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the bar to open, Beryl.’

  Beryl slipped away into the living room to leave her nephew with Charlie for a few minutes.

  ‘Do you really want me to go too?’ Andrew asked, his blue eyes wide with hurt.

  Charlie sighed. Just last night she had talked to him, explained how she felt, and she thought he understood. ‘You came down here for a holiday,’ she reminded him, ‘but because of all this you haven’t had one. You’ve got a few days left, so make the most of it.’

  ‘But I’d rather be with you,’ he said bleakly.

  ‘No,’ she said more firmly. ‘I can’t be what you really want, not yet, and it will just spoil things. So let me get back on my feet, on my own.’

  ‘Can I phone you?’ he asked. He sounded like a small boy.

  ‘Yes, of course you can,’ she said. ‘But leave it till you’re back in London. I’ll write to you in a few days, maybe in a letter I can explain myself better.’

  ‘You don’t mean a “Dear John”?’ he asked, but he smiled as he said it and his tone was teasing.

  Charlie smiled too, for what she felt was the first time since she found her mother was dead. ‘Of course not, silly. You’ve been the best friend any girl could have this last week. But all this has kind of distorted things, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘There’s no suppose about it, it has,’ she insisted. ‘So let’s just let time sort things out for us, shall we?’

  As Charlie watched Andrew, Ivor and Beryl drive off, her heart swelled with gratitude and affection. She couldn’t imagine what she would have done without them. She was especially touched by Beryl’s attempts to make her understand her mother. She thought she must talk to Beryl again in a week or two when she was calmer and find out what else she knew.

  The flat felt very eerie now. Apart from the day she’d first viewed it, she’d never been here alone before. She’d been in and out several times in the week, tidying and cleaning, but Andrew or Beryl had always been with her.

  Now it was all hers. That little daydream which she had so often escaped into when things were bad had come true. She could move the furniture around to suit herself, get rid of anything she disliked, throw a brick through the television screen if she wanted to.

  Yet as she sat on the settee, looking around her, she was surprised to find she felt nothing. No pleasure, no guilt or even sorrow. Just emptiness. The sympathy cards on the mantelpiece and window-sill, the vase of beautiful flowers which Andrew had brought her this morning and said were to stay here, rather than go to the cemetery, didn’t seem to have anything much to do with her mother.

  All the real symbols of Sylvia had gone. The walking frame and wheelchair had been returned to the hospital, the big, ugly glass ashtray had been thrown into the waste bin in a moment of rage, the piles of magazines were now being read by a neighbour. Maybe if she switched the television on and saw Hughie Green introducing Opportunity Knocks, Sylvia’s favourite programme, she might just feel her mother’s presence. But she had no idea what day of the week it was on, and besides, she had no wish to try that.

  Beryl’s description of Sylvia being a chameleon made a great deal of sense. It explained why she had always brightened up when Jin came home, how she managed to be such a vivacious hostess. Now Charlie could see too why Sylvia had always maintained a glamorous appearance back at ‘Windways’; she had to, it was a way to disguise her sense of worthlessness.

  Perhaps that was why she lost interest in her appearance once they moved here? A chameleon would take on drab colouring in drab surroundings. The only time she had sparkled in the last year was when she was taken away on holiday. Yet she must have had moments of her old gaiety and warmth when Beryl and neighbours visited her, or they wouldn’t have put themselves out for her the way they did.

  It hurt to think Sylvia had never placed enough value or importance on her daughter to change her colours now and again for her. But that, Charlie knew now, was the real core of her pain.

  ‘Well, it’s all over now,’ she said aloud, and her voice sounded strained and unnatural. ‘You’ve got the freedom you always believed you wanted, so forgive her.’

  She wandered around the flat for some time, picking things up, opening drawers and cupboards, then shutting them again without touching anything. She knew that soon she would have to go through her mother’s things properly, take the clothes and give them to neighbours or a jumble sale, go through those boxes of letters and personal things which Sylvia had refused to unpack or even look at since they moved here. Maybe in there she’d find a few answers to all the many things which still puzzled her.

  As she stood in Sylvia’s bedroom she began to cry. Back at ‘Windways’ there would have been countless good memories trapped in the sunny bedroom, of lying between her parents as they planned the day ahead, or stormy nights when they’d let her come in with them, of pillow fights, being read stories, and opening her stocking at Christmas.

  She wished she could lie down on the bed and draw on the comfort and security she’d felt as a child, but it made her shudder. It had been remade with clean covers, yet the image of her mother lying dead in it was imprinted on her mind. There was no whiff of perfume, no lacy negligée, manicure set and pots of nail varnish strewn around as there had been back at
‘Windways’, just Sylvia’s hair-brush and mirror on the dressing-table, a wool dressing-gown hanging on the back of the door, two paperback books on the bedside cabinet and a faint lingering odour of vomit and cigarettes.

  ‘Let me find some good memories,’ Charlie pleaded aloud, her voice echoing in the clinical room. ‘I want to remember you as you used to be at speech days in a lovely hat, or dressed for a party, not like this.’

  It was homework that finally halted her tears. Back in her own bedroom, sitting at her book-covered desk in front of the window, with the door firmly closed on the rest of the flat, she felt safer.

  There were no poignant reminders of the past in this room. The floral curtains had come from the spare bedroom at ‘Windways’, as had the matching cover on the single divan, but they were impersonal. The small desk was from her father’s study, but he’d never used it as such, he’d had a much larger one he sat at, this one had merely been used as a surface to dump papers on.

  Even the view from the window evoked no reminders of the past. The river Dart was a long way off, the green hills on the opposite bank she’d never explored.

  In fact when she came to think about it, there was a whole world out there far beyond those green hills, waiting for exploration. Cities, towns, villages and other countries. She had one more term at school to get through, then she could leave Dartmouth for good. Sell up everything here, pack her bags, say goodbye and start afresh somewhere new. London, and Andrew, might come first, she’d see how she felt when the time came.

  With that she picked up her pen and began to tackle her maths.

  Chapter Ten

  Charlie walked slowly past number 12 Hazelmere Road, scrutinizing the big Victorian house carefully as she went. It was a bit neglected, and the garden was full of spilling bags of rubbish, but it wasn’t as bad as some places she’d seen. Besides, the tree-lined road itself was very nice, so checking her watch first to make sure she wasn’t too early, she turned back.

  It was a Friday in mid-July, three months since her mother’s death, and she was in Hornsey, north London, with a six o’clock appointment to meet three girls who wanted someone to share their flat.