The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers

by Paul Torday

  ‘This is Mr Summers,’ said Sarah.

  Both the children were presented to Charlie, and shook his hand with immaculate good manners. After a few moments the nanny took them off to a distant nursery.

  ‘Don’t mind Belinda’s funny coloured hair,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s a very sensible girl on the whole. I’d rather she dyed her hair like that than go in for all this body piercing. That’s what some of our friend’s nannies do. I wouldn’t stand for it here.’

  Arrangements were then made to show Charlie his room. This turned out to be a servant’s room, a long way from the rest of the bedrooms, and showed no sign of recent use. There was a small bed about five feet long, a washbasin and not much else in the way of decoration. A bathroom with a lino floor across the corridor was thrown in as additional hospitality. It was lit by one of the new low-energy bulbs, which seemed designed barely to register any form of electric current, emitting a glow similar to what might have been produced by half a dozen fireflies.

  ‘I’m so sorry, none of the guest bedrooms are made up at the moment,’ said Sarah, as she showed him the spartan room. ‘If only we’d known you were coming. Now, I must tell Cook we’ve one extra for dinner.’

  Charlie laid out his sponge bag and a pair of flannel pyjamas with purple stripes that looked as if they had seen too much active service. Then he went downstairs to see whether Henry would offer him a drink, as it was nearly six o’clock.

  In the hall, copies of most of the day’s newspapers were folded and set out on another table, together with an array of glossy magazines. A bowl of cut flowers sat beside them. Sarah Newark was nowhere to be seen; presumably supervising supper, or the children’s bath time.

  Henry was an understanding host: as soon as he arrived in the hall, Charlie was pointed in the direction of a side table on which stood decanters and bottles, and invited to help himself to a drink. I imagine he felt he needed one by then: he poured a dark brown whisky with not too much soda.

  Henry did the same, and for a while the two of them read the papers. Then Henry said, ‘So, you’ve decided to settle in Gloucestershire for a while.’

  ‘I thought I might,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going to look around for somewhere to rent, get to know the locals a bit, spread the word. I’m in touch with the Japanese dog food supplier again; it shouldn’t be long before the first shipment comes in. It’s just a question of organising letters of credit.’

  ‘And where will you live?’ asked Henry.

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d rent a cottage somewhere, if I can find one. Meanwhile I shall put myself up at this pub you mentioned.’

  Henry frowned. The possibility of having Charlie as a near neighbour had not really occurred to him before. It seemed a high price to pay for offering a drink to someone on a chance encounter in the South of France. Conversation languished, and after a while Henry looked at his watch.

  ‘I might have a hot bath before dinner. Would you like to go and freshen up yourself? Come downstairs at eight. Don’t bother to change for dinner, just stay as you are.’

  Charlie agreed to this plan and wandered upstairs. As he ascended towards a landing he encountered the two children, now looking pink and scrubbed and in their dressing gowns. The girl was clutching an enormous teddy bear. They had their backs to him and were discussing something in their pure, treble voices.

  ‘I thought he was simply ghastly,’ the boy was saying.

  ‘Too common for words,’ agreed the little girl. ‘Where did Daddy find him?’

  A floorboard creaked as Charlie climbed the last stair. Both children turned about and adopted expressions of great surprise.

  ‘Good evening again, children,’ said Charlie. The two of them stared at him for a moment longer then, giggling, ran off in the direction of a warmly lit room which he supposed was the nursery.

  Proceeding to his own bedroom, he undressed and then, wrapping a towel around his waist, went to the bathroom. Such modesty may not have been necessary: this wing of the house felt as if it had been uninhabited for some years. The water was hot, however, and the bath was a good length. He lay down in it with contentment, even if in virtual darkness. Someone had thoughtfully left a bottle of what looked like shampoo by the side of the bath, so he decided to wash his hair. The shampoo had a strange, but not unpleasant, smell and turned the bathwater an indeterminate colour not easy to make out in the gloom.

  Charlie dried himself off and went back to the bedroom, where he dressed, spending some time trying to remove the spot of melted butter from his blazer. Then he adjusted his tie and combed his hair, checking himself in a badly spotted mirror on the dressing table. His hair seemed to have tints in it he had not noticed before.

  Must have caught the sun, he thought.

  He headed back downstairs. Henry and Sarah were standing near the fire, drinking champagne.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Henry. ‘Would you like a glass of this stuff? Or would you prefer to stick to whisky?’

  He gave Charlie an odd look as he spoke.

  ‘Is that champers you’re drinking?’ said Charlie. ‘I’d love some.’

  Henry poured out a glass and handed it to Charlie. The expression on his face was now quite enigmatic. His lips were compressed in a thin line, as if he wanted to say something but could not find the right words. His wife was less inhibited.

  ‘Mr Summers, something seems to have happened to your hair.’

  ‘What?’ asked Charlie. He put his hand up to his head.,His hair was all there, still slightly damp from his bath.

  Henry said, in a choked voice, ‘Perhaps you’d better have a quick look in the mirror, old boy. There’s one near the door.’

  Charlie did not move for a moment. He did not quite understand what was going on. Perhaps this was some elaborate family joke that he would be let in on in a moment or two. He smiled weakly and sipped his champagne. Suddenly Sarah said, ‘Oh my God,’ and, putting her glass down, she rushed up the stairs. A few moments later she was back, holding a bottle in her hand.

  ‘Did you use this to wash your hair?’ she asked Charlie.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I borrowed some,’ said Charlie. ‘I couldn’t find where I’d packed my own shampoo.’

  ‘It’s not shampoo,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s the nanny’s hair dye. I can’t imagine what it was doing in your bathroom.’

  Charlie decided he had better have a look. If this was a joke, it was a very obscure one. He crossed the hall and inspected his reflection in the large rectangular mirror that stood near the front door. The light was better here than upstairs and he could now see that his hair was a bright, emerald green. There was nothing more one could say about it.

  ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry,’ he said, crossing back towards the fire. ‘It does look rather odd, doesn’t it? I wonder if it will wash out?’

  ‘Don’t worry, old boy, it’s only the three of us for dinner,’ said Henry. He drank some champagne and coughed as some of it went up his nose.

  ‘Not terribly good for business, green hair,’ Charlie commented.

  At that moment the nanny, Belinda, and her two charges came down the stairs. The children looked angelic as they went over to their father and mother.

  ‘Goodnight, Daddy; goodnight, Mummy.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Sarah. ‘Do you children know anything about how Belinda’s hair dye got into Mr Summers’ bathroom?’

  The children looked at Charlie and Simon said solemnly, ‘Mr Summers’ hair’s all green, Mummy. Just like Belinda’s.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said Sarah.

  ‘No, Mummy,’ said Arabella. ‘Perhaps Lizzie put it there by mistake?’

  There was some more discussion, but no solution presented itself as to how the dye might have come to be in Charlie’s bathroom. Belinda the nanny, not unaffected by the sight of Charlie’s hair, told him the dye would wash out quite easily.

  ‘You won’t even know it was there after a few days,’ she reassured him.
Then she took the children upstairs again and shrieks of laughter could be heard from the landing.

  Charlie, Henry and Sarah had dinner at one end of an enormous mahogany dining table, by the light of a three-branched candelabrum. There was spinach souffle and anchovy sauce to start with; then confit of duck with flageolets and pommes dauphinoise; then an almond tart with creme fraiche. Charlie did not know when he might see another feast on this scale - although for Henry and Sarah, the appearance of pommes dauphinoise for the second time that month was cause for concern about Cook’s menu planning - and so he tucked in with relish. The wine was a more than adequate counterpart to the food. Yet still the conversation did not flow, although when Sarah asked, ‘What is it you do, Mr Summers?’ and he explained again that he was thinking of introducing a new line in dog food, he imagined she became a shade more friendly. It helped that the black Labrador chose that moment to push the dining room door open with his nose and, after investigating Charlie, went and said hello to his master and mistress.

  ‘Oogums,’ said Henry Newark.

  ‘Oogiewoogie woo,’ said his wife. Charlie never did find out the dog’s proper name.

  It was not an easy evening, either for Charlie or Henry, for I had an account of it from both of them at different times. As for Sarah, she showed considerable tactical skills in using the occasion as a bargaining chip. She later extracted from Henry a commitment to take her to Thailand for three weeks, a holiday for which she had been angling for some time.

  ‘After all,’ she said to Henry later, ‘what I had to put up with entertaining your ghastly little friend, heaven only knows.’

  The next morning Charlie was given breakfast in the kitchen by Henry.

  ‘Sarah’s out riding,’ he said. ‘Horses need a lot of exercise at this time of year.’

  ‘Oh, do they really?’

  ‘Still, it means I can cook us some fried bread if she’s out. Like an egg on top of yours?’

  The two of them breakfasted well and then Henry drove Charlie down to the Stanton Arms in an old Land Rover, dropping him off outside. By this time Charlie’s hair, although still rather a strange colour, was not quite as glaringly green.

  ‘Won’t come in, if you don’t mind,’ said Henry. ‘I’ve got a lot to do. We’re going up to London this afternoon. It was so nice of you to call on us. Perhaps we’ll see you around the county once you get settled in.’

  He drove away at some speed.

  Charlie pushed his way into the pub. It was quite dark in the bar and the air smelled of stale beer. A man in his shirtsleeves was polishing the counter.

  ‘Lord Newark drop you off, did he?’ the man asked Charlie. ‘He said you was coming.’

  Charlie tried not to show his surprise at this addition of a title to his new friend’s name.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, in an offhand way. ‘I’ve been staying with them, but they’re off to London now.’

  ‘Old family friend, are you?’ asked the man. His expression seemed to Charlie to say, I think not. Charlie ignored the question.

  ‘Henry said he had asked you to keep a room for me.’

  The man laughed.

  ‘Not much demand this time of year. There’s plenty of rooms. Go up the stairs outside this door and pick one, and it’s yours for thirty-nine quid a night, breakfast not included. I’m too busy and too old to carry your bag, so you’ll have to manage yourself.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Charlie, and picked up his bag.

  ‘Cash, payable in advance,’ said the man. ‘We don’t take no cheques or credit cards. If you don’t mind.’

  Three

  Charlie was given the registration book to sign. He wrote: ‘Charlie Summers’ in the column headed name; and under the column headed address, he wrote ‘Stanton’. His domestic arrangements were in a state of some fluidity and Stanton seemed as good an address as any to give.

  Once he had unpacked his things, which did not take long, he took the first steps in a plan he had been formulating for some time.

  Charlie had long experience of starting new businesses. One might add he had an equally long experience of watching them fold, but with each new venture he set out with the enthusiasm, attention to detail and diligence of an accomplished entrepreneur. It is true there had been failures in the past. He had worked as a salesman for numerous companies, selling household products door to door. There had been a scheme to recycle ink cartridges for computer printers, which had been a franchise that Charlie had signed up to: the secret formula involved pouring some water and a small amount of green powder into the used cartridge, producing an evil-smelling goo that clogged up most printers within minutes. That business was not a success and he had moved on to other things. He was for a while a travel courier; a time-share broker marketing unoccupied holiday homes in Sicily; he had distributed a special formula that reduced the fuel consumption of your car by half (or in some cases altogether, when the engine seized up); he ran loan books for sub-prime lenders who paid you in advance on the promise of receiving your pay cheque, after certain necessary deductions for interest and service.

  The Yoruza dog food scheme had a number of admirable features peculiar to itself: appealing to the warm-heartedness of the English dog lover, it promised health and long life to the lucky animal that was fed on it, and benefited, so the literature explained, from the many centuries of experience in dog nutrition of the warrior-monks of Yokohama.

  Re-establishing the business in its new form in Gloucestershire involved a series of bus journeys to Gloucester. On the first day, Charlie made a close study of classified ads in the local press, together with a number of phone calls on the pay-as-you-go mobile he had purchased. On the second day he found what he was looking for: small premises that had once been somebody’s garage and were now a lock-up. A friendly local printer agreed to supply some bags and prepare the artwork for the labelling; and Charlie arranged for the delivery to the lock-up of some industrial weighing scales and other equipment familiar to those whose life’s work involves filling paper sacks with dog food.

  These exertions occupied the best part of a week. In the evenings he returned to his new home at the Stanton Arms. The pub, like Stanton Hall, was distinguished from its neighbouring stone cottages by being built of brick - in this case, the bricks were not red but of that yellowish tinge much favoured by architects charged with the construction of public urinals. There was one long room that served as the lounge bar, elegantly furnished with veneered chipboard tables and chairs. This, the more distinguished of the pub’s two public rooms, was the setting for quiz nights and meetings of the local horticultural society. The tables were graced with menu cards, not unstained by tomato ketchup and brown sauce, that offered a selection of dishes ranging from lasagne to breaded haddock and jumbo-sized chips. To one side of this room, separated by a swing-door, was the public bar, where a more agricultural clientele was likely to be found in the evenings. Upstairs were four bedrooms, two described as en suite and graced with a shower cubicle and loo, and two others that shared a bathroom, but as there were never any other guests while Charlie was there, he had the luxury of the bathroom to himself.

  The Stanton Arms lacked some of the charms of the traditional English coaching inn. There were no roses round the door; no quaintly painted swinging pub sign. Inside were no polished brasses, no fox masks on the wall, no hunting prints or reproductions of cartoons by Rowlandson or Hogarth. The utilitarian nature of the premises reflected the personality of the landlord, described over the lintel as ‘Mr Robert Henderson, Licensee’. Known in the village simply as ‘Bob’, this individual in no way corresponded to the image of the genial country pub landlord: one’s first thought on meeting him was to wonder whether he might recently have been detained as a guest at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  In the evenings Charlie killed time in the lounge bar and at 7.30 exactly he ordered his supper - microwaved scampi and chips, or lasagne, or whatever else was on the evening menu - and then he nursed
a pint of beer for an hour or so. Charlie knew the importance of frugality at this stage of a new business venture. Like all imaginative entrepreneurs, he understood the value of credit, when to stretch it to the limit, and when not to. His budget for the evening consumed, he would retire upstairs to his room and try to make out the ten o’clock news through the snowstorm on the television screen in his room.

  Stanton St Mary was a quiet village, not especially on the road to anywhere. It lay among water meadows, surrounded for the most part by the Stanton woods. It was the sort of village that, had you been on a motoring holiday, you would have driven into with a sense of delight and discovery; and then driven out of five minutes later. The village sat astride a small stream that wound its way through marshy pastures and on down to the Severn some miles off. Most mornings and evenings, a damp mist rose from these meadows, lending the village a disembodied, mournful aspect. The houses, for the most part, were built in Cotswold stone and had all been put up some time in the eighteenth century to house workers from the Stanton estate. Now they were owned by more prosperous occupants, with Audis and Range Rovers parked outside some of them. There was a row of smaller brick cottages at one end of the village, and beyond them a slightly larger stone house, known as Stanton House, standing in its own few acres of grass park, that belonged to Mrs Bently. Beyond that was Stanton Hall.

  Apart from the village shop, which sold newspapers, groceries, sliced white bread, tins of peaches and Bulgarian white and red wine, there was not much commercial life. A scrapyard behind one of the brick cottages did bodywork repairs; another cottage usually had a hearse parked beside it, announcing the presence of the village undertaker; apart from that, entrepreneurs were thin on the ground in Stanton St Mary before Charlie arrived.

  *

  The pub was not busy. It was still high summer, but the tourist trade, such as it was in Stanton St Mary, had already fallen away. The locals tended to come in at weekends or if the pub was holding a quiz night. Otherwise the landlord was not overstretched in his duties, so Charlie used the opportunity to find out what he could about the area: in particular, potential future customers for his range of Japanese dog food. Bob, the landlord, was neither communicative nor friendly; but he was trapped behind the bar most evenings, and Charlie sat on the other side, making it impossible for Bob to avoid discourse with him altogether.