“I love you” he whispered as I drifted off.
And I had nothing I could say to that, so I pretended not to hear.
CHARLIE
I will never be able to sleep alone in my bed again. How can you go through life, not knowing that you have been missing something so fundamentally important until suddenly you have it, and then the acute sense of being without it for so long is suddenly also there but dulled by the fact it’s there now? The feel of Pearls warm body nestled in beside mine, my knees tucked into the curve of hers. I lay awake for ages just listening to her breathe. It amazes me how deeply she sleeps; she didn’t even wake when mum opened the door to check on me, which I would like to point out is not normal behaviour but a one off thing because of Pete’s passing.
“Mum!” I hissed.
Her eyebrows lifted as she clocked the situation, “Sorry! Sorry!” she whispered, smiling, backing out clumsily and knocking a hanger off the back of the door which clattered noisily to the floor. We both winced.
I tightened my grip around Pearl, listened to her murmur in her dreams, smiled, and slept.
It got even better after that first time, when we weren’t clouded by grief and Jack Daniels. Every time we climbed into bed together I felt like I was unwrapping a Christmas present, and I would gaze at her and feel like the luckiest man in the world to be able to touch her, kiss her. Her body thin, graceful, her ribs sometimes poked me when we were arched together, but she was gorgeous.
I couldn’t believe how natural it felt to make love to her. Past experience, admittedly limited, made me think that making love was rather a quick, awkward, sticky affair. Both times I hadn’t felt the girl particularly wanted me there, sensing that the face looking over my shoulder was kind of bored and clearly wanting me to just get it over and done with quickly, to which I, eager to not disappoint, obliged. With Pearl we stared into each other’s eyes; we made love with the light on.
PEARL
We went from zero to one hundred overnight, and you know what? It felt...normal, nothing out of the ordinary, just an everyday occurrence. We slipped into coupledom as easily as if it had been our intention all along. Even so, we are like chalk and cheese.
I like romantic movies, chick flicks. At a stretch I will watch an action movie, like a cop or spy one. He likes horrors, and seemed surprised when I didn’t want to watch all the Saw movies in a Friday night marathon. I hate horrors; they scare the shit out of me.
“They’re not real” he said
“They could be though, that’s the scary part”
“Just watch one, I promise I’ll protect you”
But I refused. “You can’t unsee something once you’ve seen it” I told him, “I’d have nightmares forever”. I didn’t tell him that I still checked the toilet for baby crocodiles before sitting on it as a result of a movie Tania and I snuck out of our rooms and saw some of when we were about six. We hid behind the couch and watched it and I have NEVER forgotten it. Parents underestimate the damage something like that can do to a kid.
He hates my girlie films.
“Girls don’t really think like that” he scoffed watching Bridget Jones and her friends plotting ways for attracting, and keeping, men. Then he looked at me, slightly worried, “do they?”
There are other differences between us as well.
I eat my food fast, Charlie takes forever. He jokes that I have must a cast iron mouth, because I can wolf my food down and be done in less than ten minutes while he will still be blowing on his to cool it down.
I get the hiccups often, he burps a lot.
He likes to sleep with only a sheet on top of him; I like a sheet plus a blanket plus a duvet. As a result he would push his half on to me so I would end up with double the weight, so I would push it all back on to him and it would start a duvet chucking war then meant we would both be irritable and tired the next morning.
He likes things clean and tidy and in their right place. It drives him crazy that I leave clothes lying all over the house. It’s just the way I am. When I’m watching TV and I decide it’s time for bed I usually grab my PJ’s and change in front of the TV so I don’t miss what I’m watching, stripping right there. I will eventually get around to picking them up, but he can’t sleep if he knows they’re lying out there so he does it for me. When I make my coffee in the morning I leave the jar out, lid off, a sugar trail and the teaspoon on the bench while I go into the lounge to drink it and eat my toast. Again, I fully intend on putting them away after I finish my breakfast but it bugs him so he cleans up and puts things away.
Oh and the smells, it’s true what they say about boys. It’s worse first thing in the morning when we wake up. I swear the air in the room is nearly green with all the noxious gas he’s farted out during the night. Not nice. And he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. In fact, he actually thinks it’s funny when he farts and I pull a face and say “You’re disgusting”. He just grins at me and says “I do it because I like your reaction”, which has the desired effect of making me laugh.
Still, where’s the romance in that?
CHARLIE
She can be bad tempered and cranky when she’s tired, but very sweet and affectionate when she’s not, which more than makes up for it. Part of the problem is she stays up so late almost every night. A typical night routine has started to go a little something like this I’m learning:
“Come to bed” I say, because I know exactly what she will be like in the morning if she doesn’t go now.
“No, I’m watching this.”
“You don’t even know what it’s called do you?”
“I do so!” she protests, even though we both know she doesn’t.
“You will be tired and grumpy in the morning if you don’t go to bed now.”
“I have watched....” she makes a show of checking the clock, “the last hour and a half of this programme. If you think I am going to miss the ending you are wrong.”
“Is it going to enrich your life in any way?” I point out reasonably.
“Are you?” she rather grumpily points back.
And then the next morning when she is stomping round the house, tired, tearful and in a foul rage because her hair won’t ‘go right’ and she has ‘nothing to wear’ she might shout at me, “Why didn’t you make me go to bed?” and I will just sigh and hand her a coffee because I foresaw this exact situation.
I like how naturally we seem to have fallen into a relationship. Not that I would dare call it that to Pearl, she made it very clear we’re just...well I’m not sure what the word is for it really. I’m just taking it day by day.
PEARL
A few weeks later we had our first argument.
It wasn’t even over anything important. I was, I will admit, a touch cranky, tired and bored. Living by the beach and not having to work every day might sound ideal but I promise you, it gets old pretty quickly.
There are only so many walks, naps, you can take. Magazines you can read before you get sick to the sight of Brangelina and, I never thought I’d say this, Johnny Depp.
I tried baking cookies but burnt the bottom of them even though I baked them for 3 minutes less than the 18 minutes the recipe recommended. Charlie declared them delicious but I had a feeling he would say that if I served him raw chicken. I cried when they came out of the old bench oven that had seen better days and I realised I’d overdone them. I’m not normally a crier but suddenly anything set me off. The cookies, a dead baby bird on the lawn one morning, when the newspaper delivery I’d signed up for turned out to be delivered by a moron and he threw my first one in a giant puddle so it got all saturated and I couldn’t even read it, it just disintegrated in my hands. I cried, then I called the store and cancelled the delivery.
Oh and don’t get me started on baby adverts. I’d never noticed them before but now every third one seemed to feature chubby, bouncing, babies, be it for nappies, no tears shampoo, breastfeeding, or even babies selling cars! There were laughing babies, cryi
ng babies, even one advert with an annoying rapping baby. I flicked the channel angrily/sadly every time one came on but sometimes the tears would well up involuntarily and I would have to turn my face to avoid Charlie’s questioning looks.
The night we argued he’d been pretty much at my place for over a week non-stop. Since Pete died the bookshop had been closed, out of respect and until the family figured out what they wanted to do with it. So Charlie came out for dinner the night after our ‘first night’, and then he stayed, and stayed, and stayed some more. Don’t get me wrong, I was fond of him, getting fonder by the day, but he was so, adoring and so...there all the time, rubbing my shoulders, making me cups of tea, suggesting walks, baths together. All perfectly normal things couples in the first flush of a new romance do, and I’m sure that had the timing been different I would have handled it differently, but instead I lost it. Pushed him away one night when he went to snuggle next to me on the couch and yelled at him to give me some “space and some damn breathing room!” I felt so bad straight away because the look on his face was like I’d kicked a puppy, but you know how sometimes, even when you know you’re behaving abominably, you just can’t stop yourself? It was like that. I knew I was being an unreasonable bitch but once the words were out of my mouth I defiantly wasn’t going to take them back.
He was frustratingly understanding.
“You’re absolutely right” he said, soothingly, “I’ve been over here too much and of course you need some alone time, we both do. I’m sorry”.
Which just annoyed me. Nothing like a rational person to make you feel even more irrational.
“You’re damn right I need some fucken space!” I yelled. “Every time I turn around I trip over you, you’re like a bloody dog or something!”
“I’ll go” he said
“Good!”
“I’ll call you tomorrow?”
“Oh my god, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said have you?”
“I am, yes, I just...”
But I didn’t wait to hear the rest, stomping off instead to my room where I slammed the door, threw myself on the bed and listened to him leave.
I should have felt bad or sad or something, but instead I felt a tiny bit relieved, which made me feel horrible.
For which I blamed him.
CHARLIE
Huh. I can’t say I saw it coming. I thought for sure they would sell the shop, but instead I was called to a meeting at Pete’s house with his sisters and some city lawyer and for a brief second I thought they were going to actually give it to me but of course they didn’t. Instead they want me to run it, be a Manager, with a nice new salary to match the title. I would have free reign over every decision, they assured me. The ordering, the shop layout, everything would be up to me. They would organise an accountant to take care of the money side of it, but I would do everything else. I got the feeling they expected me to jump at the offer straight away but to be honest I had mixed feelings.
There was the fact the something I still considered ‘temporary’ would, if I accepted, suddenly fall into the category of ‘permanent’.
And even though I wasn’t excited by the idea of going to university or doing my OE I hadn’t completely ruled either out. Not just yet.
But the first thought that crossed my mind when they offered me the job was Pearl. I knew she wasn’t here in the bay forever, even though she’d given me no indication for how long she was planning on staying. I knew she used to work in an office in the city but she’d left the job, or was fired, I wasn’t totally clear on that.
Would she stay, if I took the job?
Or, when she left, would she want me to go back with her?
It was too early to ask her any of these questions, especially after the other night when she accused me of suffocating her. Wow, did she overreact. As limited as my experience is of woman, I am aware about ‘monthlies’, and hormonal issues. So I figured she must have been having her period and I did what she asked and I left.
It’s taken everything I have not to call her since. Rangi advised me, over a few pints, to ‘play it cool bro’.
“Let her do the chasing” he said, “make her think you have other options’.
So I haven’t called her, although I have checked my cellphone about a million times a day to see if she’s messaged me.
Which she hasn’t.
By the end of the second day after they offered me the job, I still hadn’t heard from her so I accepted. Upon reflection, and with some encouragement from mum, I realised there were too many uncertainties in my life to add to them or to make any kind of rash decisions, so I decided that the job made a safe kind of sense. At least for now.
“You can always resign...” mum said, “you know, if you and Pearl...”
Yeah. If me and Pearl...
Dreams are free.
The next morning I was at the shop right on the dot of 7.00am. It was sad to walk through the door and see Pete’s handiwork everywhere; he had after all been running this place for over 30 years, so his touch and taste were in everything.
But that didn’t mean that a small part inside of me wasn’t rubbing its hands together in delight at the idea of having free reign. I’d had ideas over the years. For displays, events, none of which Pete was interested in implementing.
Here was my chance.
I rearranged a few things, ripped all the cardboard down from the windows. The light it let in made a huge difference to the overall atmosphere. It would do for a start.
PEARL
For the first day after the argument I simply enjoyed the silence. I didn’t have to talk to anyone if I didn’t want to, and I chose not to. Some people can be uncomfortable in their own company. Not me though, I am my own best friend. I know what I like and I know what I don’t.
The peace was delicious.
The second day I woke up remembering the things I said to him and the guilt hit. But not bad enough to call him. He had to be reminded of what I’d said; that I wasn’t ready for anything serious. I still meant it, although I realised my actions of late might have given him a different impression. Whoops. Which was why it was so important for me to not back down now, to back off a bit and give us a both a bit of space and perception.
The third day I was restless. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t bothered to call, or even to send me a text. Had I been so completely wrong about how he felt about me? Was I arrogantly assigning him feelings to which I had not the first clue about? No, I knew I wasn’t, the whispered I love you made sure of that. But then...an explanation?
Finally I caved, and sent him a text about 2.00pm. Just a casual one, ‘hey, how ya doing,’. When I hadn’t heard back an hour later I got shitty and turned the phone off (they say a watched pot never boils) and went for a wade in the ocean, kicking the foam from the waves about furiously, only the wind was in a playful mood and threw most of it back my way. I had so much frustrated energy I walked further than I had the whole stay, right to the end of the beach where it meets the river and the water has formed a natural swimming area, the palest green and beautifully transparent, albeit cold. Beautiful, creamy yellow freesias were growing in abundance and I picked handfuls to take back with me, their scent pervasive and transporting me back to summers gone by.
The long walk back and the flowers calmed me and I deliberately left the phone off afterwards, while I showered, fried a couple of eggs, watched some crap TV, stuck a few more pictures in my new dream book. When I turned my phone on again at 10pm I expected there to be a message from him and when there wasn’t I got angry again. So even though I am fully aware that a girl should never drink and text/facebook, I opened a bottle of wine and I got slightly drunk and I sent him another text. Something along the lines of, ‘Hey, you’re obviously too busy to bother remembering me, so have a nice life!’
I know, cringe. Double cringe.
He called straight away.
“Woah!” he said, “What’s with the shitty text?”
“You didn’t text me back”
“Back? You didn’t text me”
“Yes I did, this afternoon”
“I never got it”
“Well I sent it”
“Pearl, I promise you, if I had got your text I would have text you back. You know I would.”
And I knew he would.
“You want me come over?” he asked, tentatively.
“I guess so. If you want” I said, grudgingly.
So even though it was late at night and he had probably been in bed when he got my text he drove to see me, and as soon as I saw his face, his smile, I knew I had missed him terribly but just stubbornly wouldn’t let myself admit it. We went for a late night swim (yes, naked, and yes, it was rather bracing) and then we showered together and made love in the outside shower, with a million stars our only witnesses.
Mmm.
Oh, and when I checked my phone the next morning, sure enough, the message I had sent him was there, still sitting in the outbox. How many times had I done that? Closed the phone before the text had been sent properly? Too many times not to know better, is the answer.
CHARLIE
I’ve decided I have to hire someone in, just casually, a few hours a day. Just to give me a chance to do the things I need to do out the back plus implement a few of my new ideas. A lunch break would be a good thing too. As it was I was lucky enough to grab a bite to eat while behind the counter, stuffing sandwiches into my mouth in between customers. It’s can’t be good for my digestion.
Charlie and Pearl Page 7