Whiskey & Charlie

by Annabel Smith

  It was not a terrible time. The work wasn’t challenging, but there was a good buzz on the set, and at least he was busy. It was better than sitting around in his flat, worrying about money. Sometimes Charlie even felt like he was enjoying himself, and then he felt guilty. He had to remind himself that taking a stand would have made no difference. He was only a runner. If he’d walked off the job, the advertisement still would have been made.

  x x x

  The advertisement they were shooting was for a car called a Pace. It was not a new car—it had already been released in parts of Asia, but it had been rebranded for its Australian release, as a way, Charlie supposed, of distancing itself from its appalling safety record. The Pace came in a variety of different colors named after exotic fruits. It was being marketed as the funmobile and was aimed at girls in their late teens buying their first car. The plot, if you could call it that, was a classic girl-meets-boy story, with a Bollywood twist. According to Whiskey, Bollywood was going to be the Next Big Thing.

  In the advertisement, a blond, a redhead, and two brunettes jumped in and out of different-colored Paces at locations such as a beach, a nightclub, and a pool party. In less than one minute of footage, the girls appeared in nine different outfits, each of which was shorter, tighter, and more colorful than the last. Then the love interest appeared in a Pace of his own. Smoldering looks were exchanged, and a caption appeared on screen, saying Your Pace or mine? In the final scene, the brunettes and the redhead were squeezed together in the backseat of the cherry-colored model, while the blond and her new love kissed passionately in the front. Meanwhile, the Pace was surrounded by the entire cast of a Bollywood musical, singing and dancing their hearts out, and while fireworks exploded in the sky behind them, the final caption read: Can you handle the Pace?

  The key talent, as it was called, had been cast in Australia: four rake-thin girls with names like Saskia and a male model called Hayden, who sported incredible biceps and a jaw that must have been designed with a set square. The rest of the talent was local, a selection of minor stars, chorus girls, and hopefuls from the Mumbai film industry. If life was fair, Charlie thought, every one of these beautiful Indian girls would become a star. They were slim and graceful with flawless skin, perfect teeth, and exemplary manners. Sometimes they waited hours for their scenes to be shot, changed outfits again and again, had their makeup reapplied countless times, performed the same silly dances over and over in the oppressive heat, and Charlie never heard them complaining. Every last one of them was polite and patient, thrilled to be working on an Australian advertisement, unlike the Australian models, who complained incessantly to anyone who would listen, about the facilities on location, the costumes, the heat, the food.

  Charlie was mesmerized by the Indian girls. He fell in love with them collectively and worried that they would be persuaded by the advertisement to buy the Pace themselves. He wanted to warn them, every one of them, about the car’s atrocious safety record, had to remind himself that none of these girls would be able to afford a car, that the Pace wasn’t sold in India anyway.

  x x x

  Sometimes while they were shooting, Whiskey would call him over and say Give this to Susie or The client wants an updated call sheet. Charlie would pick up or deliver, the same as he did for anyone else on the set. Beyond that, he and Whiskey didn’t talk at all. They did not discuss the client, the talent, the crew. Charlie managed to avoid socializing with Whiskey until the wrap party on their last night in Mumbai. He was at the bar with Susie and one of the other runners, a guy named Tex, when Whiskey came over.

  “Great job, guys,” Whiskey said, raising his glass to them, all charm now that the job was wrapped up.

  Charlie did not raise his glass, would not meet his brother’s eye, but Whiskey pressed on.

  “How did he do?” he asked Susie jovially.

  “He was bloody useless,” Tex butted in. “He sat around on his bony bum making eyes at the dancers while I ran around like a blue-assed fly.”

  “Dream on, Tex,” Susie said. “Charlie put you to shame, and you know it. I’d have him on my set anytime.”

  “You didn’t have to say that,” Charlie said when Whiskey was gone. “I don’t care what he thinks.”

  “I don’t care what he thinks either,” Susie said. “I didn’t say it for his benefit; I said it for yours. And I meant it. In fact, I’ve got a spot for you on a shoot back in Melbourne in a couple of weeks, if you’re interested.”

  “Susie, Susie, you’re breaking my heart; you haven’t mentioned this to me,” Tex said. “If I didn’t know you batted for the other team, I’d think you had the hots for Charlie.”

  “I didn’t ask you because I happen to know you’re allergic to cats.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”

  “It’s a Whiskas ad,” Susie said wryly.

  “Ah, no thanks,” Tex said. “I’ll take these Indian babes any day.”

  Charlie laughed. “They certainly did make the shoot more bearable,” he said.

  “So how about it?” Susie asked him.

  Charlie hesitated. “It’s not one of Whiskey’s, is it?”

  Susie rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Charlie, give me some credit. I think I’ve seen enough on this shoot to know that you and Whiskey are no Torvill and Dean when it comes to working together.”

  Charlie nodded, thinking. He didn’t have any better plans. He grinned at Susie.

  “I like cats,” he said.

  * * *

  Within five days of the accident, Whiskey’s condition is deemed stable enough for a coma arousal program to begin. Charlie and Juliet are sitting with Whiskey the first time the therapists come. They introduce themselves as Angie and Fergal, and Charlie writes their names in the book as they wheel their trolley in.

  “Should we come back later?” Juliet asks.

  “You can stay and watch, if you want,” Angie says. “We can show you a few techniques you can use yourself. A lot of family members like to take part in the therapy.” She smiles encouragingly.

  Charlie feels apprehensive. He doesn’t know the first thing about coma arousal therapy. Surely it’s not that simple. What if they do something wrong? It might do more harm than good. And there is something about Angie and Fergal that makes him uncomfortable. For starters, they’re not wearing uniforms, and their appearance doesn’t exactly scream professionalism. Angie is wearing colorful stockings and shoes with flowers on them, like a little girl, and Fergal has something of the mad scientist about him, with his thick-rimmed glasses and great mop of hair. But Charlie doesn’t know how to say no to them. He will have to report their visit in the book. And what will Rosa and his mother think if they find out he refused to take part in the therapy?

  Angie begins by explaining that ideally they attempt to engage each of the five senses as well as stimulating the patient through physical movement. In Whiskey’s case, she says, his other injuries prevent any physical movement, and while he is being fed through a nasogastric tube, they won’t be able to work on his sense of taste.

  “We’ll start with the sense of smell,” Angie says, and Fergal takes the lid off a small glass bottle and holds it under Whiskey’s nose.

  “What’s in there?” Juliet asks.

  “Eucalyptus oil,” Fergal tells her.

  “Whiskey doesn’t like the smell of eucalyptus oil,” Charlie says, remembering how his mother used to put it on a handkerchief when she had a cold, and Whiskey used to complain about the stink.

  “That can be a good thing,” Angie says to Charlie. “We’re looking for a grimacing response as an indicator that he’s aware of the smell, and sometimes you’re more likely to get a response with a smell the patient doesn’t like. But we’ll try all sorts of things—garlic, peppermint, spirits of ammonia. You might want to bring in some scents from home—perfumes or aftershaves he’d recogn
ize, things like that.”

  Charlie doesn’t know what aftershave Whiskey wears. He makes a note in the book to ask Rosa.

  “Next we’ll have a go at his sense of touch,” Angie says. “Usually we’ll work on a number of points on the body, but because of Whiskey’s injuries, at this stage, we’ll just focus on his right foot.”

  Fergal peels back the sheet from Whiskey’s bed and begins to massage Whiskey’s foot.

  “Deep pressure massage is very effective,” Angie says. “Also things like pinching and slapping can work.”

  “Won’t that hurt him?” Juliet asks. Charlie is thinking the same thing. Surely Whiskey is already in enough discomfort without their adding to it.

  “It’s only a minor discomfort,” Angie explains. “And in comatose patients, pain can be a helpful stimulus. But if you’re not comfortable with that, you could try rubbing a loofah on the sole of his foot or even a scrubbing brush—something rough. The intensity of the sensation is important with the sense of touch.”

  Scrubbing brush/loofah, Charlie writes in the book, though he doesn’t think he will bring one. He still hasn’t really gotten used to even looking at Whiskey; he doesn’t feel anywhere near ready to touch him. But he thinks perhaps Rosa or his mother might want to try it.

  “Okay, now we’re going to work on his visual perception.”

  Charlie is appalled when Fergal opens each of Whiskey’s eyelids with his thumb and shines a penlight right into his eyes. Fergal explains that they are hoping to see the pupils constrict. Angie demonstrates this for Charlie and Juliet by holding open her own eyes while Fergal shines the penlight in her face. Charlie feels like he is back at school, taking part in some half-baked human biology experiment to test reflexes. Next we’ll start tapping each other’s knees with hammers, he thinks.

  But what they do is even more ridiculous than that. To test Whiskey’s auditory response, Fergal crashes two tin plates together, rings a bell, and then, after warning Charlie and Juliet to cover their ears, blows a piercing whistle right next to Whiskey’s head. It is worse than a science experiment, Charlie thinks. There is nothing scientific at all about what they are doing. Charlie doesn’t wait to hear Angie’s explanation for Fergal’s antics. He leaves the room and heads straight for the nurses’ station, Juliet right behind him.

  “You need to do something about that therapy right now,” Charlie says to the nurse on duty, a woman called Robina Charlie has come to like.

  Robina comes out from behind the counter. “What’s the problem, Charlie?”

  “Those two clowns in my brother’s room are the problem,” Charlie says, barely controlling his anger.

  Robina looks at Juliet for clarification.

  “Angie and Fergal,” Juliet explains. “They’re…banging on saucepans and things. It seems a bit…ad hoc.”

  “Ad hoc? It’s total mayhem in there! Somebody needs to stop them, or I’ll stop them myself.”

  “No, Charlie,” Robina says firmly. “I want you to stay right here while I get this sorted out for you.”

  “I’m not losing my grip, am I, Jules?” Charlie asks desperately when Robina is gone. “Did what they were doing seem crazy to you? It’s not me, is it?”

  “Of course not,” Juliet says, putting her arm around him. “It definitely wasn’t what I expected.”

  “They’re packing up for now,” Robina says, coming back to them. “I’ve called one of the counselors to come down and have a chat with you about this.”

  “I don’t need to speak to a counselor. As long as those two charlatans stay away from Whiskey, everything will be fine.”

  “They’ll already be on their way now. Juliet can sit with Whiskey. You’ll probably find a chat will do you good.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Charlie insists.

  “If I told you it could help Whiskey, would that change your mind?”

  “How could it possibly help Whiskey? He’s not even going to know about it.”

  “Robina’s right, Charlie,” Juliet says. “It can’t do any harm.”

  Charlie’s head is swimming. All the anger has gone out of him, and he feels suddenly weak, too tired to argue.

  x x x

  The counselor they send is nothing like Charlie expects. He had envisaged a middle-aged woman with glasses and a floral shirt, a fake maternal vibe. Instead, he is introduced to a young Jamaican guy called Thomas, in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Can I call you Charlie?” Thomas asks, shaking his hand. He leads Charlie into one of the little waiting rooms, sits down in an armchair across from him, over a coffee table stacked with trashy magazines. Stars Without Makeup, Charlie reads on the cover of one magazine; What Celebs Really Weigh! promises another.

  “Robina tells me you’re upset about your brother’s arousal therapy,” Thomas says, coming straight to the point.

  “It’s a farce,” Charlie says. “Whiskey’s lying there all bandaged up, attached to every machine known to man, and they’re behaving like a pair of monkeys who’ve escaped from the zoo. They could have given him a heart attack the way they were carrying on.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Charlie snorts. “How do you think it made me feel? How would you feel if someone was doing that to your brother?”

  It is a rhetorical question, but Thomas chooses not to take it that way.

  “I suppose I’d feel worried, frightened even, a bit helpless. Is that how you felt?”

  “No!” Charlie says vehemently. “I felt fucking angry, if you really want to know.”

  Even as he says it, he knows that Thomas is right. Underneath the anger he is shit-scared, feels more helpless than he’s ever felt. But he isn’t going to admit that. He looks down at the magazines, avoiding Thomas’s eyes. Bikini Bodies—Get in Shape for Summer, one of the covers says. Then the words go blurry, and he realizes he is crying. Thirty-two years old, and he is blubbering like a baby in front of a complete stranger. Not since he was a child has he cried in front of another man, not even his own dad. He tries to pull himself together.

  “Sorry,” he says, still not looking at Thomas. Thomas hands him a tissue. Charlie blows his nose, wipes his eyes. “Sorry,” he says again.

  “No need to apologize,” Thomas says, and he sits and waits until Charlie is done with his crying.

  “It’s totally normal to feel angry in this situation,” Thomas says then. “It’s a perfectly reasonable response to a situation that’s so frightening, so beyond our control. It’s instinctive for our protective mechanism to kick in when someone we love is under threat. Are you very close to Whiskey?”

  Charlie nods, and then wonders who he’s trying to fool. He shakes his head. “We used to be,” he says and then stops. “We don’t talk anymore,” he tries, but he knows that’s a cop-out too. “We’ve had a falling out,” he admits eventually. “We haven’t talked for a long time.”

  “Do you want to talk about that?”

  Charlie shakes his head again. “Not really,” he says. “Not now, anyway.”

  “Fair enough. We can talk about that some other time, if you change your mind. Right now, I want to come back to what happened this morning during Whiskey’s therapy, if that’s okay.”

  Charlie nods his assent.

  “All of the staff here at the hospital, we’re all on the same side, Charlie. We all want what’s best for Whiskey, the same as you do. The surgeons, the nurses, the therapists—they’re all working for the same goal. What they do might not always make sense to you, but every decision they make, they make with Whiskey’s well-being in mind.”

  “But you didn’t see them,” Charlie protests.

  “I’ve seen them working before,” Thomas says. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only person to have reacted like this the first time they’ve seen Angie and Fergal in action. Thei
r methods are unorthodox, I know that. But they’re trained professionals, very well regarded in their field, and they’ve had a lot of success with their program, much higher than the success rates with conventional methods. Now if you’re not ready to take part in Whiskey’s therapy, that’s okay. But you’ve got to let Angie and Fergal do their job,” Thomas says. “You’ve got to trust them. And not only them—the whole team. You’ve got to let them do what they need to do to get Whiskey better.”

  “All right,” Charlie says after a time. It makes sense to him, what Thomas is asking.

  “Great.” Thomas gives Charlie a card with his pager number on it. “If it gets too hard,” he says, “you call me, okay? And we’ll talk again.”

  Charlie puts the card in his pocket. “Thank you,” he says. It feels inadequate. He is ashamed, not of crying, but of getting angry.

  “I’m sorry—” he begins to say.

  “No need for that, Charlie,” Thomas says. “It’s already forgotten.”

  And Charlie puts his apology away and pushes open the door to Whiskey’s room.

  Juliet

  Juliet was Whiskey’s girl first. Whiskey was earning a mint by then, winning awards left, right, and center, going to parties in penthouse apartments with models and actresses and TV producers, all of them shoveling cocaine up their noses by the bucket load.

  Whiskey had offered to take Charlie to one of his parties. Marco suggested that Whiskey might be trying to patch things up, to make up for what had happened in India. Charlie knew better. He knew his brother wanted only to show him that the world he lived in was more glamorous than Charlie could imagine, that the people he knew were richer, more beautiful, and more successful than anyone Charlie might have the fortune to meet and that all these people knew Whiskey by name; he was part of their world. He wanted to show Charlie what a mistake he’d made in India by blowing the chance to work for Whiskey again.