Chasing Charlie

by Linda McLaughlan

  ‘How are you holding up?’ Ed whispered to me.

  ‘Top of the world. What are you—’

  But I didn’t get to finish my question. Charlie chose that moment to finally emerge from nowhere. He joined our awkward little party with a few smooth strides.

  ‘Ah, if it isn’t the prettiest sisters from Petersfield.’

  Rebecca tinkled her practised laugh again. My stomach gurgled. This wasn’t the great reveal of Sam looking sexy in a dress I’d been working up to at all! Charlie was looking at me with a gleam in his eye – that was good. But I hadn’t imagined this moment with the others there. And not feeling this bad! The room seemed to shudder around me. It sounded like everyone was shouting. I unpeeled my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I had to get my shit together and say something for God’s sake.

  ‘Um, Charlie, this is Ed, Mara’s brother.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I met him the other day,’ Charlie shouted. He reached out and shook Ed’s hand.

  ‘You did?’

  Ed looked at me and shrugged. ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Even Ed, who had such a lovely voice, sounded like he was shouting.

  Charlie laughed expansively, boom boom boom.

  ‘Now, let me get your drinks. What’ll it be, Ed? Rebecca, your usual? Sam, ale?’

  ‘Make it a vodka tonic,’ I muttered, excusing myself to teeter to the bathroom at a fast, thigh-clenching trot.

  When I returned, Charlie was still standing there with Ed and Rebecca, and I could hear her laughing right across the room. Of course I knew Rebecca was going to be at the party but I hadn’t expected her to bring Ed. Stupidly I thought that because no one had mentioned her all week the whole weird thing between Ed and Rebecca was dead in the water. But it obviously wasn’t. I couldn’t possibly just stand there in that little circle and make small talk, I couldn’t.

  The lamé clutch Claudia had leant me was on the bar next to them. I joined them long enough to pick it up and then moved a little way down the bar and took a seat. I soon got involved with an important text conversation with nobody. Charlie dropped my drink to me after a little while.

  ‘Here you go, gorgeous.’ He nodded to the phone. ‘What’s that about? Why aren’t you with us?’

  ‘Work.’ I put the phone face down so he couldn’t see it.

  ‘On a Saturday night?’

  I nodded and took a sip. Ick, it was strong. I felt like the whole world was too strong, too loud, too intense for me.

  ‘Well, you know what they say about all work and no play.’ Charlie looked at me intensely. ‘You look so good tonight. Good enough to eat.’

  It was working. It was actually working! I just wished I could stand up for more than a minute without feeling sick.

  Charlie leant in again.

  ‘Look, I can’t hang around talking to you by myself all night. It will happen though, OK? And in the meantime don’t be a stranger.’

  ‘OK,’ I managed, my voice tiny in comparison with his. ‘I’ll try.’ I said that bit to his back. He had gone, returning into the fray, under cover. I had to bide my time.

  39

  SAM

  It was disgusting and it carried on all night. Rebecca twinkled and twirled and tried her best to outshine me with all the men in the room – in particular Charlie and Ed. It wasn’t hard for her – I wasn’t exactly able to strut my dress or sparkling personality around the room.

  Can’t you see she’s faking it all! I seethed from the sidelines, sipping vodka on my empty stomach. It’s all a big game – she’s never going to give a shit about you, about any of you. In fact she’s never going to care about anyone at all ever.

  Eventually I got talking to some random man who was quite cute and funny, and I slowly began to relax a little. I wasn’t going to go desperately pawing after Charlie. Rebecca’s tinkling was attention-seeking enough. And there was this cute, funny fellow. I hadn’t caught his name and I was missing sections of his banter but I picked up enough now and again to laugh.

  I was amusing him with stories from shoots that had gone terribly wrong when an elegant arm wrapped its way around whatshisname’s neck.

  ‘Luce!’ he exclaimed, smiling a broad and genuine smile.

  ‘Hello, little brother, charming the ladies again are we?’

  I swallowed and my insides dropped an inch. It was her.

  ‘This is Sam. Sam, this is Lucy, my sister.’

  ‘Oh, I know who she is.’ Lucy looked at me. ‘An old friend of Charlie’s – we’ve already met.’

  ‘Hi,’ I smiled, terrified.

  Lucy launched into a conversation with her brother about people I had never heard of. She was dressed in a simple satin dress the colour of oysters, with tiny little straps that showed off sculpted collarbones. I sat there, my bowels loosening by the second, my body sending out urgent alarm signals. Get to a toilet now! it was telling me. But I couldn’t move. The coolness in Lucy’s eyes and tone had frozen me to the spot. Eventually though, after what was probably seconds, my body took over and I stood up, muttered my excuses and teetered to the toilet.

  Halfway there I felt a hot, wet intruder slip out into my pants.

  Oh fuck, oh fuck! I tried to pick up speed, clenching the top of my thighs together even tighter, thankful that I’d decided against wearing a thong. I could see the door to the Ladies, almost there, almost there.

  But suddenly he was there, muscling me off track into a dark corridor, his unmistakeable scent enveloping me.

  ‘Not now, I really need the loo!’ I pleaded.

  ‘You are such a tease, I’ve hardly seen you all night,’ Charlie admonished me in his smooth voice, taking my hand and pulling me out of a fire exit into the cold night. He had obviously had several more drinks since he saw me at the beginning of the night. It was making him reckless. Dangerous. We were in an alley down the side of the club. He took my wrists and pushed me against the wall, kissing me roughly. I tried kissing him back but the effort of keeping my bum closed and concentrating on his lips was too much. I wrenched away from him.

  ‘You having a good night then?’ Distract him, that’s what I needed to do.

  ‘It’s better now,’ he mumbled, his eyes glazed with drink, and he tried launching in towards my lips again.

  ‘Charlie, I’d love nothing more than to ravage you right now but honestly I really need to go to the loo.’

  Charlie sighed and released my wrists, confidently running his hands down my body.

  ‘You do look good enough to eat, Sam,’ he said huskily, and pushed his crotch into mine, ‘but I suppose I can wait a bit longer.’

  Then he stood back and sniffed.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘What smell?’ I said, stepping into the doorway.

  He sniffed around some more, his shirt open at the neck, hands in his pocket, swaying slightly. He was even more handsome, I noted, when he was drunk.

  ‘Oh, it’s gone.’ He kept sniffing. ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘Probably something in the alley,’ I called and bolted inside.

  When I emerged from the toilet, having stuffed my soiled pants in the sanitary disposal bin, the atmosphere had changed. It felt like half the party was missing. The roar of conversation had gone, leaving only music. Those left were looking towards the door, where a bunch of people were all trying to get out at once. I could hear shouting from outside. It didn’t sound good. I cast around for Charlie, Ed and Rebecca. No sign of them.

  Suddenly Lucy’s brother ran across the room and pushed his way outside, his face serious. I felt full of foreboding but my feet took me quickly across the room to follow him. Something was wrong. I had a dreadful feeling it would have something to do with me but I still had to know. Half the party were on the footpath. Someone was shouting in a shrill voice while a low voice rumbled in counterpoint. I skirted around the gawping half-moon of onlookers onto the road, only just getting out of the way of a cab as it pulled in. There – I finally had a view
of the scene. It was Charlie and Lucy! He was pleading with her but she was having none of it.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ she shouted as she stepped towards the cab, a couple of her pretty friends trying to shoo Charlie away.

  ‘Lucy, don’t go, this is crazy!’

  ‘No it’s not,’ Lucy yelled from the car. ‘It’s over.’

  And with that the car pulled away from the kerb and into the night, leaving Charlie reeling on the footpath, and his friends heading back to the bar, eager to get back to the main business of the evening.

  Instinctively I rushed to him. ‘Are you OK, Charlie? What’s going on?’

  He stood swaying, his eyes still glazed. ‘Sheesh a fucking nightmare,’ he mumbled, gazing in the direction the cab had gone.

  ‘Come on, come and have a drink.’ I tugged on his arm softly.

  He looked at me finally then, confused, as if he couldn’t understand why I was there.

  ‘Charlie?’ I said.

  But he said nothing. He turned away from me and gazed at the disappearing cab, as if it was the only thing that existed in the world right then. In the argument with Lucy, his shirt had become untucked, his hair ruffled and his jacket was no longer sitting on his shoulders properly. He looked desperate. He looked totally heartbroken.

  I felt the hope I had for that evening and all the desperate weeks leading up to it turn into sharp needles in my belly. I stepped back from him, almost turning my heel on the kerb, just steadying myself in time. This. Was. All. Wrong.

  ‘Come on, mate.’ A couple of his friends barged in where I had been and clapped him on his back. ‘Come and celebrate, there’s plenty more totty inside, come on!’ They tried to move him out of the road but then Ed was there, shadowed by Rebecca, her make-up still looking as pristine as it did five hours ago. Another cab pulled up and Ed opened the door.

  ‘Just go home, mate,’ he told Charlie as he negotiated him inside, somehow completely ignoring the vociferous complaints from his friends. Rebecca hovered by the door, one arm on Ed’s back, like a little nurse guiding the doctor to the patient. She completely blanked me; I may as well have been invisible.

  ‘How do we make sure he gets home OK?’ she chirruped to Ed. He didn’t answer and leant in to talk to the driver, then shut the door firmly behind Charlie, effectively preventing anyone else speaking to him.

  ‘He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need any more liquor, that’s for sure.’ He was using such old-fashioned language but somehow making it sound right. ‘The driver knows where to go.’

  The next thing I knew I was back inside. I don’t remember walking back in. I was reeling from what I had just seen, trying to make sense of it, the furious screams of Lucy still ricocheting around my head. Had she seen us kissing? Is that why she took off? But I had kept an eye on the entrance to the alleyway the whole time and we were only out there for a minute, weren’t we? The night was a jumble in my head. All night I’d felt outside of myself. Mara was right, I was in no fit state to be out, and instead I’d put a couple of vodkas on an empty stomach with my feet in heels. No wonder I felt so jangled. And Charlie had never felt so . . . aggressive before. That wasn’t like him. It must have just seemed that way because I’d been feeling so unwell, so weak. He couldn’t have been so forceful with me really. It was all in my head.

  I looked around me at the deflated party, the punters swaying out the door to more exciting venues. I longed for the safety of my own bed more than I’d longed for anything all night.

  At that moment Ed came up to me. He was holding my coat.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said, gently helping me put it on.

  I almost started crying with the relief of having my coat on.

  ‘Thank you. My hands are shaking.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. You look like you need to be in bed.’

  ‘Funny, that’s just what I was thinking.’

  Ed shook his head at me.

  ‘You look like your sister when you do that,’ I said. I managed a small smile.

  ‘For once, I don’t mind. Mara’s right, you know, you are a worry, Sam Moriarty.’ He put an arm round my shoulders and squeezed them.

  ‘You’re not going, are you?’ Rebecca appeared next to us. She looked as bright eyed and bushy tailed as she had at the beginning of the evening. I looked at Ed. Surely he won’t want to stay here will he? The idea of him not being at my side as I trekked home was horrible. At that moment it felt like Ed was the only thing keeping me warm, upright and sane enough to get home to where I should be. But his face was blank, completely unreadable.

  ‘The night is young! Let’s not let all that drama ruin Saturday night.’ She did a little wiggle. ‘What do you think, Ed, time for a boogie?’

  I looked at him again. What would he say?

  ‘No thanks. I’m going to take Sam home, she’s not feeling well.’

  Thank God.

  Rebecca gave a little pout.

  ‘Aw, poor Sam. I would have thought you’d be bouncing off the walls seeing Lucy take off like that, not feeling all sorry for yourself—’

  ‘I’m feeling sick, actually—’

  But Rebecca ploughed on. She wasn’t listening to me. Her eyes had taken on an extra gleam. She was a cat about to pounce.

  ‘Not that you should be getting your hopes up. There’s no way he would ever go backwards to you. He’s moved on into a different world to you and it’s not a world you’re ever going to be a part of—’

  ‘OK, that’s probably enough, Rebecca. I’m going to take Sam home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rebecca looked crushed for moment then gave a little shrug. She leant up and gave Ed a peck on his cheek. ‘Too bad, Ed. I’ll get you on the dance floor one day.’

  ‘Bye, Rebecca.’

  Ed turned me round and led me to the door.

  ‘Get better soon, Sam. And forget about tonight,’ Rebecca called out to me.

  I didn’t answer. Forget about tonight, she says. Forget about what? About Charlie kissing me roughly? About crapping my own pants? About him being heartbroken when his girlfriend took off? About the horrid words you just said to me?

  Ed led me out into the cold night, his arm firmly round my shoulders. It stayed there all the way home.

  40

  CLAUDIA

  I arrived at the café to Sam scowling at me over half-eaten scrambled eggs.

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she demanded.

  ‘Hello to you too.’

  It wasn’t like Sam to greet me with a strop and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. I was tempted to turn round right there and then and walk out again. I had enough going on without dealing with anyone else’s crap but she must have seen something of that in my face and dropped the attitude quickly.

  ‘Oh bollocks, sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s me who should be apologising. I just can’t get my head around last night.’

  And she was off, telling me all about Charlie’s birthday party. At least I think that was what she was talking about. To be honest, I couldn’t really keep up. The story was pouring out of her and it was coming at me at double speed, or that’s what it felt like. Of course she couldn’t really have been speaking at twice her usual speed but, with my head crammed full, I struggled to process what she was saying.

  ‘. . . so there they were on the footpath and she just leaves him, screaming, “It’s over,” and goes off in the cab! What do you think, Claud, do you think it really is over?’ She paused and looked at me. I realised I was expected to give her some sort of response rather than just a sympathetic noise. What was it that she’d just said? I felt something in my hands. It was the menu. I had been holding it the whole time Sam had been speaking but I hadn’t taken any of it in. Maybe I should have stayed home today after all. I couldn’t be a good friend right now. This was awful.

  ‘Have you been listening?’ Sam said again.

  ‘Yes, of course I was,’ I replied. Think. Say something.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ I said.<
br />
  ‘The thing is,’ Sam continued, ‘he seemed totally floored by the whole experience, as if it came out of nowhere. But I don’t understand that because when he’s been with me he’s been saying it’s not working with her. But I suppose he was really drunk at the time.’

  The waitress arrived and took my order or, I should say, I opened my mouth and somehow formed a string of food-related words. I hope they made sense. The pimply girl taking the order wrote them down anyway. It gave me a moment to come up with some Charlie-related words and I strained to remember the content of Sam’s download. I took a sip of coffee and Sam watched me place the cup carefully in its saucer. I think I had the gist.

  ‘It could be the end, Sam. Or it could be that they thrive on drama and this is just one of many walkouts by the girlfriend. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘Lucy . . .’ What could the name tell me about the woman? Not much, not really. I think of Lucys as being warm and apple-cheeked, with curly blonde hair, none of which was helpful right now. When Sam told stories like this one it was usually my job to give her some context, some big-picture stuff to make the action in the foreground reduce to a more manageable size for Sam to process. At least that was what I’d always thought she needed. What a great big pile of rubbish that seemed like now. Why should anyone come to me for advice? And worse, why should I have thought that what I had to say was of any use?

  ‘Is she a drama queen?’ I finally dredged up another question.

  Sam shrugged. ‘She doesn’t seem like one. More the cool, calm, keep-everything-up-my-clean-anus type actually.’

  ‘Nice.’

  Sam smiled. ‘It’s true! Anyway that’s why I think this really might be the end. I doubt she’d normally be that out of control in public.’

  ‘So why are you so grumpy then? By what you’re saying you should be over the moon, right?’

  Sam hesitated. ‘That’s what I don’t understand either, Claud. I should be happy but I’m not.’