Chasing Charlie

by Linda McLaughlan

  ‘He has,’ I agreed, not liking the halting way Mara was speaking.

  ‘The doctors said my memory will come back, bit by bit.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Mara trailed off and closed her eyes. I looked at Mara’s face, so beautiful, and normally clamped shut around her thoughts; the tightly controlled face in front of a busy, busy brain. But here, against the starched white linen, Mara had no choice but to acquiesce to her exhaustion, to the drugs keeping her quiet, to a brain and body traumatised. It made me feel very wobbly, and as bossy and annoying as Mara could be, I desperately wanted the Mara who knew everything back. I sat with her for a little while and then stood up slowly, not wanting to wake her. As if reading my mind, Mara’s eyes fluttered open.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How is Ed?’ And her eyes were suddenly boring into my soul.

  ‘He’s good, I think. I mean he’s been worried about you, but he’s got some work and—’

  ‘I mean, how is he in himself?’

  ‘OK, I think.’ I gnawed the side of my lip, not sure what else to say. Because he was OK, I thought. Then I frowned. Did I even know how he was?

  ‘What?’ Damn, Mara saw the frown.

  ‘Nothing, nothing. I think he’s OK, really. I’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry.’ I leant over and pressed Mara’s arm. ‘Anyway, you’ll be home soon enough, you just concentrate on getting better, don’t you worry about us.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me.’

  ‘Ouch.’ I withdrew my hand.

  Mara sighed. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to snap, I just feel bloody awful.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  Mara turned and looked at her machines, then turned back and this time her stare was weaker.

  ‘I can’t help but worry about him, that’s all.’

  ‘I know, try not to.’ I stood and kissed Mara on the forehead and left her to sleep some more. And as I walked down the corridor to find Ed, I resolved not to wind him up with stories of Charlie or anything else. I would do exactly as Mara had asked and look out for him.

  58

  CLAUDIA

  ‘Have you decided what we’re doing tonight yet, my gorgeous Salad?’

  I grinned. He really was the most ridiculous man. I’d never had a nickname before but John had made short work of that, progressing from Claudia to Coleslaw to Salad before I could stop him. He was even starting to call me Crunch, sometimes.

  ‘Why Salad?’ I had asked him the first time he said it.

  ‘Because you’re a particularly crunchy salad,’ he replied, moving swiftly to nibble my earlobes while I shrieked.

  To start with, at the beginning of last week, I had made pathetic efforts at hiding the relationship at work but it was futile, as the truckloads of chemistry between us was impossible to shove under the carpet. Even having Mara in hospital couldn’t dampen my excitement when I was around him. I knew people were watching us and talking about us but I was so deliriously happy that I didn’t give a rat’s bum.

  ‘I don’t mind, we could see that film you want to see, whatsit? Or . . .’ I bit salaciously into a large piece of cherry chocolate cake.

  ‘Or?’ He cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘Not another night in. Are you sure Salad doesn’t need some fresh air? You don’t want to get wilted leaves.’

  I slowly wiped away a sticky chocolate deposit in the corner of my mouth. ‘Oh, I don’t know, I happen to know someone who is good at spritzing,’ I said, then spoiled the whole effect by snorting into my plate. Through my giggles, I noticed a neat, grey pencil skirt hovering next to our table.

  ‘Hi, Claudia. Erm, hi, John.’

  I wiped the grin off my face with my napkin.

  ‘Hello, Rebecca, how are you?’

  ‘Oh fine, thanks. You?’ Rebecca smiled her thin smile, her eyes flitting back and forth between John and me.

  ‘Great, thanks!’

  ‘How’s Mara doing?’

  ‘Really well, thanks. She’s on a ward now and should be home in the next couple of days.’ I eyed Rebecca shrewdly. ‘Has Sam been telling you about Mara?’

  Rebecca’s cheeks pinked slightly. ‘No, it was . . . Mum.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘Anyway, John, I just came to tell you that your one thirty is running half an hour late so you don’t have to rush your lunch after all.’

  John laughed. ‘That’s lucky because I’d completely forgotten I even had a meeting at one thirty. Brilliant news,’ he said, adding, ‘thank you, Rebecca.’

  Rebecca nodded and hurried off, obviously keen to get away. We giggled together. How gorgeously hilarious everything was in his company.

  ‘How’s Rebecca working out for you anyway?’

  ‘She’s very good at her job . . .’

  ‘I can hear a but coming . . .’

  ‘She’s hard to read. I have no idea what’s going on in her head.’

  ‘Plastic?’

  ‘No, too bright for that. Extremely reserved. I never hear about life outside of work.’

  ‘I think her main objective is to be at the right places with the right people, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Actually’ – John put a finger in the air as he remembered – ‘last week she did tell me about a concert she’d been to. Surprised me. Seemed a bit rocky for her or something. Who was it . . .’ He looked heavenward as he thought. ‘I know! It was Coldplay.’

  ‘Oh really? Sam was going to that. But . . .’ – my thoughts ticked backwards to the previous week – ‘with Mara and everything, I haven’t heard her talk about it. Maybe she didn’t go . . . What night did Rebecca go?’

  John shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I was only half listening. A Friday or Saturday I think.’

  I thought back. Mara got knocked off her bike on the Friday and Sam came straight to the hospital. We were there until quite late. Then, as we were leaving, Sam’s phone started up – ping, ping, ping. It was Charlie, wondering where she was. The night they were meant to see Coldplay. How interesting, I thought, how very interesting indeed.

  59

  ED

  It was Saturday and I surprised myself by leaping out of bed, wrapping my Rajasthani lungi around my waist. I was feeling the lightest I’d felt in a week – although this week had felt like the longest week in the world. I folded my bedding neatly away and stowed it behind the couch, then rearranged the futon back into couch shape, carefully arranging the throw over the top. Next I opened the window a fraction. A biting-cold wind came in but I knew Mara couldn’t abide fustiness, especially her brother’s. She had emptied a trunk for my possessions when I’d returned from India, and from this I pulled clean jeans and my one collared shirt. I sifted through my other clothes on the floor, making a pile of the dirties and neatly folded the rest, placing them in the chest. I stood back. It was a pleasant scene, this order first thing in the morning. I could almost get used to it. Gathering up piles of dirty clothes, and the ones to wear that day, I headed down the narrow hall to the bathroom.

  The door to the bathroom was shut. Amazing – I’d never known it possible for Sam to be out of bed before ten o’clock on a weekend morning. Coffee first then.

  A little while later, Sam’s eyes widened when she saw me with just my lungi wrapped around my waist.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  I rubbed my bare arms. ‘A little.’

  ‘You should have told me you were up – I could have got out of the bathroom a bit sooner.’

  ‘That’s OK, when a woman needs as much help as you do to face the world in the morning, I wouldn’t dream of demanding that you shorten your shower.’

  ‘Charming!’

  She reached out and hit me playfully on the arm.

  ‘Didn’t hurt,’ I teased, hoping she’d do it again. I ran my fingers over where she’d just touched it in a ridiculous attempt to get closer to her.

  She just narrowed her eyes at me and withered.

  ‘Whatever, I
ndian boy,’ she said, gesturing to my lungi.

  ‘You know you love it,’ I replied. She just sighed back. Maybe that was trying a little too hard. Still, she hit me. I’ll take that.

  After breakfast, we both got stuck into cleaning and airing the flat. Mara had made good progress in the week since her accident. The doctors weren’t saying yet when she’d be discharged but Sam and I had both taken to keeping the flat immaculate, ready for her homecoming the minute she was allowed out. I suspected that Sam’s motive was the same as mine: if the flat was ready it would somehow speed up her return. Sam had also knuckled down big time with her work. She says she’s on a mission to pay back the rent she owes – again, trying to get everything in order for Mara.

  The times I had seen her I could have sworn she was being nicer to me, and staying away from the topic I hated most. And she kept asking how I was coping. I suspected that Mara was behind this change in behaviour, and for my own sanity I tried not to fantasise it was because Sam was having a change of heart.

  That morning, she opted to clean the bathroom – ‘as I need it more than you, apparently’ – and I set to work in the kitchen, wiping down cupboards and worktops, cleaning the windows, and brushing and washing the floor. George watched, bemused, from a chair, his tail twitching. I popped my head into the bathroom when I was finished. There was Sam, on her knees, leaning over the bath and scrubbing it fiercely with bright pink gloves. She leant back and pushed her hair out of her face, adding a wet slick down one side of her hair. Of course she hadn’t thought of tying it back, I chuckled silently to myself. She looked at me with bright eyes. I leant on the door frame. She really was utterly, painfully gorgeous.

  ‘Cup of tea, ugly?’

  ‘Gasping for one, thanks. I’m almost done.’ And she leant back over the bath and scrubbed some more. I had to wrench himself away to the kitchen, as it was too much watching her from behind. Way too much.

  ‘God, that’s good.’ Sam took a noisy slurp from her tea.

  ‘It looks good in here, Mara’s going to love it.’

  ‘She’d better!’

  Sam sat back to allow George to transfer from his chair to her lap. She fussed over him for a while. I watched her, enjoying the moment.

  ‘So did you meet anyone nice in Scotland?’

  Whoa, that came out of nowhere. I didn’t want to talk about other people, not now. Not when I had her to myself. I shrugged.

  ‘There was one woman.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘We had some fun.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘It was.’ I nodded. I supposed it had been. She was sexy and funny, and it was nice to flirt with someone. Would I have slept with her if I’d stayed the last week of the shoot instead of coming back? Maybe. Maybe not.

  ‘Good for you, Ed. Glad you had some action.’

  I made a non-committal noise in the back of my throat and before I could stop myself asked, ‘Have you seen Charlie this week?’

  ‘No, I’ve either been working or at the hospital, haven’t I?’ Sam sounded sharp. I knew I shouldn’t have brought him up but it was so hard not to. After all, Charlie was the double-barrelled elephant in the room. Maybe she’d change the subject.

  ‘He hasn’t been in touch much actually.’ Sam’s tone was softer, confiding. ‘Just a couple of texts asking how Mara is but not responding to me when I suggest we meet up. He sure plays hard to get better than anyone I know.’

  My heart soared involuntarily. Maybe he’s losing interest!

  Sam looked up quickly from George.

  ‘I thought it was women who were meant to be the complicated ones?’ she said.

  I looked at her and shrugged. If only you knew, Sam, if only.

  At one o’clock, the flat was finished, tidied within an inch of its life and smelling of fake lemon. We were super-duper pleased with ourselves. Neither of us had done that much concentrated housework in a long time, possibly ever. The next plan for the day was to grab a sandwich and eat it on the Tube on the way to the hospital.

  ‘Where’s the iron?’ I was on a roll – this tidy business was going to my head.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know, do we have one?’

  ‘Haven’t you gone all girly girly on us? You should know these things now!’

  ‘Yes, well. I’m not sure I’m very convincing.’

  ‘You’re lovely the way you are, you know.’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. ‘For a troll,’ I added hastily.

  Sam gave me a look I couldn’t read.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  60

  SAM

  I came in at the top corner of the park, having run to the cemetery and back. I was fighting every sinew and muscle that wanted me to stop, and by the time I got to the park it was pretty much all of them. But I wasn’t going to stop, not until I got to the—

  I stopped suddenly and turned around, retracing my steps at a wobbly walk to the park bench I had just struggled past.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, hello, Sam.’

  She was sitting there, sitting there on this freezing-cold day, casually fiddling away on her phone with purple fingers. Rebecca didn’t just sit on a park bench in early spring. The bench might be damp and mark her coat.

  ‘You’re good, out running like this. It’s been two days since I’ve been to the gym.’

  ‘Sounds crazy.’ I extended one leg behind me to stretch my hamstrings, hands on my hips, and then switched legs, waiting for my sister to answer my original question but she said nothing and kept tapping away on her phone. I moved closer to the bench, grabbed one foot and pressed it into my bottom, feeling the heat of the stretch down my quad.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, just getting some fresh air, people watching.’

  ‘You don’t like people.’

  Rebecca turned and gave me a sour look. ‘You do talk trout sometimes, Sam. Who doesn’t like people?’

  ‘But you don’t even live near here.’

  ‘So? I like this park – it’s pretty. The daffodils.’ Rebecca waved a half-hearted hand towards a swathe of yellow.

  She was right, of course. I couldn’t argue with her on that. I hoisted my other foot up and pressed it into my bum. This one was always a bit more stubborn.

  ‘So have you seen Charlie lately?’ Rebecca asked me, keeping her eyes glued to her phone.

  ‘No. I’ve been at the hospital most days actually.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course you have,’ she answered hastily. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Getting there.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Rebecca answered, not really listening, as she tapped on her phone some more.

  ‘So have you seen Charlie lately?’ I asked in the lightest voice I could muster, placing one foot on the bench and leaning over it.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Rebecca said casually without looking up, as if to say what a stupid question, of course she’d seen him, she sees him all the time.

  I changed legs and leant in, looking intently at my trainers.

  ‘I saw him at Coldplay a couple of Fridays ago.’

  ‘You went to that?’ I stood upright, unable to keep the shock off my face.

  ‘Yes.’ Rebecca smirked, more than a little contemptuously. ‘I love them, they’re one of my favourites. It was a great night, Charlie had a brilliant time.’

  I had to get away then. I wanted to run as fast as I could, away from this wind-up of a conversation that was making me boil with envy and confusion, excluded from this special club where the same sort of people hobnob happily every evening, not giving a shit about whether someone was in hospital – not caring about anything except having a bloody good time with people like them. Anyway, if I stayed I’d probably be sick on her horrible suede shoes, or hit her or something. I turned and started down the path towards home, muttering I needed to get home.

  ‘Oh, Sam,’ Rebecca called to my back, ‘you
don’t know when Ed’s home, do you?’

  ‘No idea,’ I called over my shoulder, picking up my pace into a fast jog, more keen than ever to get some distance between myself and the poisonous little tart.

  61

  CLAUDIA

  Now we found numerous excuses to nip past each other’s offices, and could be seen flitting back and forth from Marketing to HR and vice versa throughout the day, to the enormous pleasure of the office gossips. A tally had started in the marketing department of how many visits per day, while the junior lawyers were taking bets on how long it would take for us to wear a track in the carpet. Usually this would have ticked me off but weirdly it all made me very happy.

  Late on Monday afternoon I decided to surprise him rather than making my usual, strident appearance. I took a sheaf of papers with me as an excuse and crept quietly along the wall of the private offices, stopping just short of his door. It was closed so I looked down at the papers in my hand and pretended to read them, stretching my ears towards his office, trying to ascertain if he was in a meeting or not. Directly opposite his door on my left, and hidden behind a partition, Rebecca was speaking on the phone. I was shocked to hear her giggling warmly. Before I could stop them my ears immediately honed in on Rebecca’s conversation.

  ‘Oh, stop it, you don’t really mean that . . .’ Giggle, giggle. ‘Well, I might be able to . . . no, I just have to check my diary . . .’ Giggle, giggle. ‘I am not playing hard to get . . . I’m not!’ Titter. ‘I’ll let you know later . . . OK, bye then, lover . . . Bye.’

  I snapped back into my body. Surely that wasn’t Ed she was speaking to? I felt hot and a little disorientated, and for a moment I didn’t know whether to keep walking and knock on John’s door or make a hasty retreat. As I wavered, still staring unseeing at the papers in my hand, Rebecca stood up abruptly, her head coming up over the side of the partition. I saw her appear in my peripheral vision but pretended to be immersed in my papers. I waited for Rebecca to acknowledge me but she didn’t. She moved out of sight, and I looked up to watch her wend her way across the floor at a fast clip towards the toilets. Heart beating hard, I knocked on John’s door softly and entered, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw him sitting alone, beaming at me.