The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

by Catherine Robertson

  He stroked her arm until her tears slowed to small hiccupping shudders.

  ‘Come on,’ Anselo said. ‘Come on out from there.’

  He helped her to her feet, and after she’d wiped the last tears from her face, and the dust bunnies from her jeans, he took her hand.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  The next room, being very warm, was redolent with the powdery, yeasty-sweet smell of baby. Being also small, there was enough space only for a low chest of drawers, which doubled as a change table, and a cot that Anselo had built and painted himself. He’d had to make it because the cot his family had given them, the one that had held seven generations of Herne children, proved to be a Victorian mahogany monstrosity that resembled a miniature coffin. Darrell had refused even to touch it. Luckily, one of Jenico’s daughters was about to have a baby of her own, so the coffin cot was reallocated without undue fuss. Anselo, knowing Jenico’s daughter, suspected that rather than holding an eighth-generation Herne, the cot had ended up on eBay, with the proceeds gone towards a brand-new, six-hundred-pound designer sleep unit from Born.

  The cot that Anselo had made in record time, with the baby due at any minute, was white-painted pine. Inside it, asleep, was eight-week-old Cosmo. One arm was up beside his head, and his little fist was clenched, so that he looked to Anselo like a tiny unionist pledging solidarity on the strike line. Cosmo’s skin was dark like Anselo’s and his hair was brown, like both his parents. His eyes behind the closed lids were still newborn murky blue, and Anselo secretly hoped they would become Darrell’s grey rather than his own brown. Anselo did not want to feel ashamed of his ethnicity, but he would prefer it if Cosmo did not look so obviously Roma.

  ‘Look.’ Anselo wrapped his arms around his wife’s shoulders and brought her to the cot. ‘He’s there. He’s fine.’

  Darrell had her hands over her face.

  ‘He was only eight months old.’ Her voice dropped to an appalled whisper. ‘He drowned in the washing machine …’

  Anselo resisted the urge to demand how the hell an eight-month-old child could possibly get into a washing machine full of water. As it was, he could feel her shoulders starting to judder again.

  Instead, he said, ‘Cosmo’s fine. He’s safe. Don’t you worry.’

  He dropped a kiss on her hair, and drew her closer to him into a hug. He hoped that she might reciprocate. But her body remained rigid, her hands in front of her face.

  Anselo had to remind himself yet again that he was the one who had it easy right now. He did not have a sea of deranging hormones coursing through him. He was not carrying extra weight, his breasts were not engorged and enormous, and his private parts were unscathed.

  But it did not feel easy. It felt, thought Anselo, as if all three of them were on a makeshift raft, and it was his responsibility to keep constantly tightening the ropes, lest the raft split and the half bearing his wife and child become swept away beyond his reach.

  Knowing that in the Herne family any hint of domestic unrest was circulated at a speed that warped the space-time continuum, Anselo had not asked any of his female relatives but had Googled how long it might take for a new mother to start feeling human again, instead of, as Darrell had put it, like ‘the bloated corpse of an unhinged minke whale’. The internet gave him varying answers, but the accepted average seemed to be six months.

  Four months to go, thought Anselo. Four months of me continuing to do what I’ve done since Cosmo was born: bring home money and food, fulfil my duty as the so-called man of the house. I’ll put on hold any physical or emotional needs of my own because that’s my place, my role — that’s what’s required of me.

  Trouble was he was finding it tough enough now to keep the raft ropes tight. One had already slipped momentarily out of his grip, and he regretted it. But if all the intimacy continued to happen only between his wife and child, he thought, what then did they expect his role, his place to be? Did they believe there was any place for him at all?

  3

  Charlotte brought in coffee for Patrick and Anselo. The two men, rather than sitting around Patrick’s Raul Barbieri glass-topped table working, were slumped in dejected silence at each end of the Arik Levy sofa. Charlotte liked designer furniture and admired the taste of whoever had decorated Patrick’s office, which she knew could never have been Patrick, who if left to his own devices would almost certainly have opted for one of those hideous recliner chairs, probably in faux buttoned leather, as well as a beer fridge and a snooker table, full size.

  ‘Would you like me to add a dash of whisky? To elevate the spirits, as it were?’ she asked, placing the tray on the table.

  The two men raised themselves to stare at her.

  ‘I thought we were all out,’ said Patrick.

  ‘No,’ said Charlotte. ‘There’s still the bottle of Suntory single malt that Mr Shimizo gave you in gratitude for making him such a nice profit on the sale of that warehouse in Leonard Street.’

  ‘Japanese whisky?’ said Anselo. ‘Isn’t that a bit like saying Scottish cuisine?’

  ‘And it’s attitudes like yours,’ said Charlotte, ‘that have motivated the Japanese to become the powerhouse of innovation and production that they are today.’

  ‘I thought that was the Chinese,’ said Anselo.

  ‘The Chinese don’t care what anyone thinks.’ Charlotte held up the coffee pot. ‘Whisky or no?’

  Patrick glanced at his watch. It was just after three. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Why not? But better not put it in my coffee,’ he added. ‘Not even raw moonshine could cut through that amount of milk and sugar.’

  ‘It’s quite good, isn’t it?’ said Anselo an hour later, holding his third glass up to the light.

  ‘It is,’ said Patrick. ‘But this had better be the last — I can’t go home pissed. Well,’ he amended, ‘I can, and more than once have. But best not make a habit of it.’

  Charlotte was sitting on Patrick’s desk chair (Spoon by Antonio Citterio with Toan Nguyen), which she’d wheeled out alongside the sofa, because the men had decided they didn’t want to drink alone. She wasn’t much of a whisky fan, but she would have happily tipped used machine oil down her throat for the chance to stay in the room and listen in.

  ‘I could go home with an arm cut off and I’m not sure anyone would notice,’ said Anselo.

  ‘They would if they wanted you to make tea,’ said Patrick. ‘Though I suppose you could pull the jug lid off with your teeth.’

  Then he added, ‘It’s always shit for the first few months. Hang in there.’

  Anselo gave the older man a look. ‘And then it gets better, does it?’

  Charlotte saw colour flare briefly in Patrick’s cheeks. He sank back into the sofa and stretched out his legs.

  ‘What’s happened to us won’t happen to you,’ he said. ‘God fucking willing.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Anselo, subdued. ‘Is there definitely something wrong?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘They can’t find anything. No problems with his hearing. Mouth and tongue seem to be OK. Apparently doctors don’t worry too much if they’re under two. So we’ve got a week or so before we need to start panicking.’

  He lifted his glass and knocked back an amount that made Charlotte wince.

  Anselo said, ‘Cosmo’s so young that it’s just all about the basics. Sleep, food, clean pants — that’s it. The sum total of his needs.’

  ‘Add in the dog track and a pint of stout, and you’ve got Granddad Herne,’ said Patrick. ‘He was a happy little bastard, too.’

  Out on Charlotte’s desk, the phone rang. Charlotte hopped up, but Patrick said, ‘Leave it. If it’s important they’ll ring back. If it’s not they can fuck off.’

  The ringing stopped. Immediately, over on his own desk, Patrick’s mobile began to buzz.

  ‘Do you want me to—?’ Charlotte offered.

  ‘No, it’ll only be some relative.’

  Charlotte watched as he hauled himself to his feet,
and took his time getting to the desk. The mobile was still buzzing urgently. He snatched it up.

  ‘Yep? He’s here. Three Suntorys down. Good luck.’

  He held out the phone to Anselo. ‘Beatrix. She’s been trying to ring you.’

  ‘Shit.’ Anselo took the phone, fumbling for his own mobile in his pocket. He scowled at its screen.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to the person on the line. ‘Mine’s gone dead. Bloody iPhone batteries are rubbish.’

  He listened and scowled harder. ‘Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’

  Patrick, now back on the sofa, caught Charlotte’s eye. ‘The only way he’ll get out of this is if he does cut off his arm.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ said Charlotte.

  Patrick reached for the whisky bottle. ‘No idea. But what I do know is that it’s his and not mine.’ He refilled his glass. ‘Which is the reason I hired him.’

  His mobile landed on the sofa next to him, tossed by an irate Anselo.

  ‘Queen B is on site and needs some decisions made,’ he announced. ‘Right now.’

  ‘At least she consults you,’ said Patrick. ‘Most architects just spend your money and, when you complain, accuse you of degrading their artistic integrity. Like you’ve spray-painted two hairy bollocks on “And when did you last see your father?”’

  ‘Beatrix doesn’t have artistic integrity,’ said Anselo. ‘She has a profit margin.’

  ‘You two make a great team,’ said Patrick, grinning.

  Anselo’s parting gesture was a popular one that made use of a single finger.

  Charlotte heard the main door shut and realised this meant she and Patrick were alone. Property development did not require a large team of full-time staff. Patrick used numerous contractors, who came in and out of the office regularly. But none of them was here right now.

  He’s been drinking was the next thought that went through Charlotte’s mind, followed by: but is he drunk enough to be susceptible if I made a move? Patrick could hold his drink quite well, Charlotte had observed. His exact level of inebriation was hard to gauge.

  But any further speculation on the subject ended when he said to her, ‘Charlotte, what the fuck am I going to do?’

  ‘About?’ Charlotte said cautiously.

  ‘Everything!’ He threw wide his arms, and the whisky sloshed in his glass. ‘Every fucking thing in my entire fucking life!’

  Then he slumped back and ran his free hand over his head. ‘Don’t answer that,’ he said. ‘I don’t pay you to solve my problems.’

  ‘Well, you pay me to solve some of your problems,’ said Charlotte.

  Patrick stared. ‘Like telling pushy real estate agents to go fuck themselves with a pointy sign?’

  ‘I don’t recall using those precise words.’

  He smiled at her with what looked very much like affection, and Charlotte only just managed not to launch herself at him and kiss him until they were both gasping for air.

  Then she realised that his smile had faded, and that he was no longer looking at her, but staring off into the middle distance.

  It wouldn’t do, she decided. I might get a kiss now. I might get more than that. But that would be it; there would be no encore. And I don’t want instant gratification. I want gratification that endures, like a classic chair design. One you actually want to sit on, she added mentally, which eliminated pretty much everything by Philippe Starck.

  Charlotte realised with a slightly uncomfortable jolt of surprise that she had no strategies for making someone fall in love with her. She had strategies for inviting men into her bed, and for ensuring they left again in a timely manner. But that was sex, and while Charlotte knew that many people believed that sex and love should mingle harmoniously, like watercolour paints, she had always preferred a more Mondrian-like approach, with strict lines of demarcation between the physical and the emotional. Until now, Charlotte had been happy for the emotional to remain boxed into the tiny square of yellow in the bottom right-hand corner, while the physical occupied the red square that took up three-quarters of the canvas. She felt at home with the big red square; she felt in control. But now the yellow square was drawing her eye, demanding her attention, and to Charlotte, it looked as huge and foreign as the Gobi Desert.

  How does one set about getting close to another person? Charlotte asked herself. All she’d gleaned from watching other people was that ‘being there’ for someone played a key part in forming an emotional bond. Charlotte had previously had no inclination to be anywhere for anyone, and was thus a little fuzzy about what it entailed. But, she reasoned, a) Patrick was a special case, and b) it was never too late to learn a new skill.

  ‘Perhaps if you separated your assortment of problems into component parts,’ she ventured, ‘then they might seem less daunting?’

  ‘You say “assortment of problems”. I say “fucking mess”,’ said Patrick. ‘But yeah, fair call. I should stop wasting time whining, and just knuckle down and sort myself out.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ said Charlotte, ‘but let’s not quibble. Pick a problem, any problem, and we’ll go from there.’

  Patrick eyed her over his whisky glass. ‘You know this is above and beyond?’

  ‘Pick,’ said Charlotte firmly.

  Patrick began to speak, and Charlotte began to listen as she’d never listened before. Charlotte’s cup of care was rather like one of those joke drinking glasses that only looks as if it has liquid in it, and in the past the point at which she stopped listening generally preceded by some minutes the point at which her friends stopped talking. Amazing, she thought, what love will make you do.

  He started out expressing concern for Anselo and Darrell’s marriage. Patrick, it seemed, was more worried than he’d been letting on. He was worried that the couple didn’t seem to talk much anymore, and that Darrell was obsessively clingy about the baby. The pregnancy had been a surprise and, when Darrell had found out about it, she’d panicked to the point where she’d run away, back home to New Zealand, without telling Anselo where she’d gone. Anselo had tracked her down and flown across the world, all the while ‘shitting himself’, according to Patrick, that not only did Darrell intend to get rid of the baby, she may have already done so.

  ‘She hadn’t, of course,’ said Patrick, ‘and they made up, got married and had Cosmo. But my sense is the two of them were so traumatised by the whole incident that they swept it under the nearest big fucking rug and never dealt with it. And that can’t be good for any relationship, can it?’

  Charlotte had no opinion, mainly because the subject was of about as much interest to her as the value of credit derivatives on the Hang Seng. She could not see what relevance it had to Patrick at all. All right, yes, they were family, but Anselo and Darrell were both grown-ups, surely, not lovelorn teens?

  But Patrick’s next remark galvanised her.

  ‘If their marriage does turn to shit,’ he said, ‘Anselo won’t hang around. The humiliation will do him in; he’s always cared far too much about what everyone else thinks of him. And if he goes, I might as well shut this business up now. I haven’t got the energy to keep it going without him, so I might as well get out.’

  Charlotte was appalled. If Patrick closed the business, then she would have no job. If she had no job, there would be no Patrick. That was a future simply not to be contemplated.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Charlotte, a little too sharply. ‘You ran this business single-handedly for years. Why do you suddenly need Anselo?’

  ‘Because when I started this business, I was young,’ said Patrick. He drained his glass. ‘And now I’m old.’

  He cut Charlotte off mid-protest. ‘I’ve got responsibilities now I never had back then. A wife, and a child with … issues. And I probably shouldn’t be telling you this — if I start to complain of boils on my nuts, it’s because I’ve been hexed — but I’ve been shoulder-tapped to be the next head of the family. Jenico’s looking to retire.’ Patrick waved
his glass around again. ‘How am I going to fucking manage everyone else’s lives when I can’t even sort out my own?’

  Charlotte did not yet have a reply. Every cell in her brain was at the mental alert equivalent of DEFCON 1. The most immediate threat was Anselo and Darrell; her first task was to ensure they stayed married. As potential interventions raced through her mind, it occurred to her that there could be benefits beyond preserving the business and her connection with Patrick. If she could find a neat way to solve all his problems, she might very well become the most important person in his life.

  ‘Have you considered taking a holiday?’ she heard herself say.

  Patrick blinked at her. ‘A holiday?’

  ‘Sometimes a break from routine is all you need. You can recharge, regroup. Come back with a new perspective on life.’

  ‘A holiday?’ said Patrick again.

  ‘A long one,’ said Charlotte firmly. ‘At least a month. And somewhere nice. So not Blackpool. Or the Costa del Sol.’

  ‘We can’t.’ Patrick shook his head. ‘Not with Tom. Clare’s freaked out enough as it is. The stress of travelling with a toddler would do her head in completely.’

  ‘What if she had childcare?’ said Charlotte. ‘Travelling with her?’

  Patrick snorted. ‘She wouldn’t trust Tom with the Dalai fucking Lama! She barely trusts him with me!’

  Charlotte folded her arms and sat back in the Spoon chair, swivelling to and fro with her toe as she pondered.

  Then she said, ‘Leave it to me.’

  When the idea about the holiday had leapt into Charlotte’s head it had run along the lines of: organise a trip to somewhere nice, preferably in Europe; offer her services as childminder so that she could go along; and find some way to sort out Darrell and Anselo’s marriage, while, more importantly, taking every opportunity to drive a wedge into Patrick’s own, separating him from his wife so that she, Charlotte, could then embed herself into his life and his heart. Simple.