The slightest of smiles flickered across his face and his hand fell into mine. Something quite like butterflies, but bigger, albatrosses maybe, took flight inside my stomach at the feel of his skin on mine.
‘That’s nice to know.’
This felt like the moment, the one where I might lean over and kiss him. Everything was out in the open now, all secrets revealed. There was, hopefully, nothing else holding him back. But just as I was contemplating making a move, a sound so loud that I felt it in my bones made my heart falter and I sat bolt upright.
It took me a moment or two to realise that the sound wasn’t the police arriving to arrest us for trespassing or a bomb going off, but simply the clock behind us, tolling the arrival of midnight.
Charlie’s laughter could be heard through the pauses between chimes as he rolled around on the blanket beside me.
‘You bastard, you knew that was coming,’ I shouted above the din.
He sat up, once his fit of hysteria had ended, and placed a hand on my face. ‘I’m sorry, I meant to mention it.’ His thumb stroked the soft skin over my cheekbone as he looked into my panic-stricken eyes. ‘It must have slipped my mind.’ He chuckled and before long I was laughing along with him.
Chapter Ten
There are moments in life when you stop for a moment and simply have to ask yourself, how the hell did I end up here? And as I sat in the uncomfortably itchy folding cinema seat with my prosthetic latex nose slowly detaching from my skin and dangling precariously over the bucket of mixed popcorn in my lap, I decided that this was most definitely one of those moments.
The Day of the Marathon was on over in Worcester, a one-day film festival showing all the George Romero zombie films. My heart had sunk at the thought of it. Not only would it be zombie films, but ancient ones, the kind that have niche, cult followings of men with untamed facial hair whose staple diet is Mountain Dew and Wotsits and still live in their parents’ basements at the age of forty-five. Nonetheless, I had accepted, simply because it meant several uninterrupted hours of time spent with Charlie. It wasn’t until I had sworn myself into this event, that he’d added a caveat.
I picked up a puffed kernel of corn and chucked it in the general direction of my mouth with a sassy and seemingly putrefying hand. Soft sniggering came from the seat beside me and I cast a pissed-off look his way. I’d agreed for him to come to mine a couple of hours before we had to leave so that he’d have time to transform me into one of the undead, on the promise that everyone would be doing it and that there would be a prize for the best cosplay.
I’d been reluctant at first but he’d looked at me with downturned corners of his mouth and pinched lines between his brows and I’d come to the conclusion that this whole thing was happening in Worcester, where I knew no one. It would be fine; I’d just take the back routes to the motorway, so I didn’t drive past anyone I knew, not that they’d even recognise me with blacked-out eyes and half a rotten face.
So, I’d sat there at the kitchen table and let him do his worst. He’d gently rested the crook of his wrist on my cheek and worked carefully, with a concentrative tongue pinched between pursed lips. After a few seconds I’d realised that having him paint my face was the perfect excuse for me to do what I’d wanted to do since I’d first met him, sit and stare at his face from close proximity, but in a way that wouldn’t make me look like a creep. As time ticked by and he delicately augmented the blood spatter above my top lip, I took in the fine lines that had begun to take up permanent residence in the skin around his eyes, the deep russet reds that sprung up at intervals throughout the otherwise dark hair of his chin and the subtle scars scattered over his cheeks, which must have been left over from teenage acne.
A strand of hair, which had escaped the claw clip holding my hair back from the array of sticky things being applied to my face, trembled with every aggressive thump of my heart. He looked good. Putting his mind to things, using his skill. I had wondered, in those minutes when he hovered a few inches away from me, what would happen if I leaned over and kissed him. Would he lean into it, or turn on his heel and run for the door again? I’d thought about it and come to the conclusion that, as far as I knew, he wasn’t into necrophilia and so, me lunging in with zombie face probably wasn’t the best turn-on.
‘You’ve never looked more beautiful,’ he said, and even though I knew it was a joke, the albatrosses took flight inside my stomach again.
Three and a half hours later, the glue that he’d used to adhere my fake rotting nose to my real, thankfully un-rotting, nose was beginning to itch and it was taking all the resolve I had to not tear it from my skin and throw it across the crowded theatre. The rows were filled with all kinds of people of all ages and all walks of life, not just the type of people I’d thought would be here. But whoever they all were, none of them, I repeat none, were made up like zombies and the second I’d realised this, I’d almost got straight back in the car and driven home without him. He seemed unaffected by the strange and amused looks that we sparked when we walked into the foyer, as if he didn’t care a bit that he appeared to have a gaping hole in his cheek, through which fake blackened teeth could be seen.
As we walked through to the screen, I saw a timetable on the wall, detailing how the movies would play. My heart sank when I saw the extensive list of films, but Charlie reassured me that we were only staying for the first three as, according to him, they were the only three worth watching and that we could leave if I got too bored.
The first film flew by in a blur of popcorn and screaming and I’d enjoyed it more than I thought I would, or more than I’d openly admit to Charlie. There was one person behind us, a right Chatty Cathy, who was sitting about two rows back and had whisper-talked throughout the whole thing. She needed to recalibrate her whisper to talking ratio because I could hear every single one of the passive-aggressive comments she handed out to her husband throughout the film. I only knew that he was her husband because at one point she’d muttered into her plastic, foil-topped glass of rosé, ‘I can’t believe I married someone who’s into all of this shite.’
Now, I wasn’t the biggest fan of anything zombie-related, but even so, I’d rather have added another three films to this marathon, than hear her whinging commentary for a moment longer about how the special effects in The Walking Dead were so much better.
The final grainy black and white shots of the film played out and the house lights came up. I shuffled, self-consciously, down in my seat and shoved another handful of what seemed to be never-ending popcorn into my black-lipped mouth.
Charlie let out a satisfied sigh and turned to look down at me from where he sat, upright and confidently unfazed, in his seat.
‘Jesus, are yer still embarrassed?’ He chuckled. ‘How do yer think anyone is going to recognise yer with all that crap on your face?’ He reached over and took a handful of popcorn. ‘Go on, I know that signature smile is still under there somewhere.’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied haughtily. ‘But it’ll be just my luck to meet someone I haven’t seen in years when I’m here looking like an idiot.’
‘An idiot? I’ll have yer know that you’ve about fifty quids’ worth of make-up on your face. If anythin’, yer look like a movie-quality badass,’ he said, proudly. ‘Did yer at least enjoy the film?’
‘It was … okay.’ I allowed. His brows arched into an exaggerated look of distress. ‘I never claimed to be a zombie fan. Never have I ever claimed to like this stuff. However, here I am, looking like a complete loser in itchy make-up and sitting through a six-hour zombie film marathon to make you happy.’
‘And I thank yer for it.’ He sniggered and scratched at his own zombie nose, the entirety of his prosthetic moving a few millimetres with every unsatisfying scratch of his nail.
‘Yer heard from yer fella since the other night?’ he asked.
‘He’s not my fella. He’s just a fella. And fella really is a bad word to describe him. He’s not someone you’d look at and the word
fella would spring to mind.’ He rolled his eyes at my babbling and waited for me to actually answer his question. ‘No, he hasn’t been in touch. Why’d you ask?’
He micro-shrugged. ‘I just wondered if he was okay. Couldn’t have been easy for him to open the door and see such a strappin’ young man with his girl.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. He’s seen Ned before,’ I jested.
‘Oh, aren’t yer just hilarious,’ he said sarcastically and chuckled to himself as he started picking pieces of popcorn from where it sat in various places around his person.
How I’d left things with Joel had been sitting awkwardly in my stomach ever since he’d turned up at the house and I didn’t quite know how to handle it. Was I supposed to ignore him? I guess, ignoring him would be the most compassionate way to handle it – just leave him to do whatever he wanted with the information he had. And anyway, if I did text him, what would I say? Sorry?
I wasn’t sorry that I’d called quits on us. It was time, and I was exhausted by carrying the ten-ton corpse of our relationship around with me all the time. I wasn’t sorry that I’d met Charlie either. Yes, Charlie was not the most straightforward of people to have a second try at love with, but I was feeling something again and I wasn’t going to apologise for that.
I’d known from about six months in that Joel loved me more than I would ever love him, but nonetheless, I did – love him that is.
‘He still loves yer, that’s plain to see,’ Charlie said.
‘I know.’ I sighed and leaned back heavily in my chair. ‘But he needs to sort himself out. Figure out what he wants to do with his life and then do it. If that boy completed one thing in his whole life, it would be a bloody miracle. He used to argue that da Vinci never finished anything. But I always found it hard to believe that when da Vinci decided not to continue with something, it wasn’t because he’d much rather be sat around in five-day-old boxer shorts, watching Storage Wars and drinking soup out of a mug.’
‘We all have our moments where we lose sight of what’s important. It’s easier if yer don’t care about things, but after a while the carin’ catches up with yer.’
‘Do you speak from experience?’ I asked.
‘Maybe a little.’ He blew a laugh through his nose. ‘Would yer take him back – Joel?’
‘No. I didn’t like who I was with him.’
‘I understand that.’ He seemed a little nervous, the skin around his eyes scrunching into little crow’s feet that remained etched into his face paint even when he moved his face. ‘Who I was, up until as recently as a couple of years ago, I don’t know if you’d have liked him.’
‘Why?’ I asked, worried. How different could he have been? My brain instantly started concocting tons of terrible scenarios in which he was a drug addict, shooting up in alleyways outside nightclubs, or some sex-crazed womaniser, who owned his own sex swing and who would probably be bored to tears by anything I had to offer.
‘I was just a bit of a fake, yer know? Cocky, sure of himself. Come t’think of it, I was just like my uncle, just without his likable charm.’
‘You? Without charm? Don’t pretend like that’s even slightly possible. You’re a textbook brooding rom-com charmer. There’s no fighting it; it’s just who you are.’
He looked at me from the corners of his eyes and smiled, revealing white teeth and causing those half-moon lines to crease his cheek behind all the grey make-up.
‘You think too well of people,’ he said as people around us began to settle back in for the second film.
‘I’m an optimist. I see the best in people, even if they’re reluctant to show it.’
He looked up fully now, his eyes once more agleam with mischief. ‘I’m not sayin’ that I kicked puppies or talked in the cinema.’ He said the last point a little louder than the rest, directing the comment towards the Chatty Cathy two rows behind us.
‘Good.’ I responded equally loudly and equally sarcastically. ‘Because there’s a special place in hell for those people!’
I think I heard a small harrumph from her but that was the end of it.
‘I was just a bit of a tosspot and not a very nice person. I was one of those men who speak fluent banter and think that spending twelve hours straight on Call of Duty is an acceptable use of time. I’d only have the latest phones and watches, even though I only ever wore them to show off to people. I’d drink in the fanciest of bars and I’d always be the first to buy a round to give them all the impression that I was doing better than I actually was. I once spent almost my whole month’s paycheque in one night out so that I wouldn’t have people knowing that I wasn’t gettin’ any theatre work. I had to take out a loan, which whooped my ass for a good few months until Carrick paid it off for me.
‘I used to look down on people who stayed home in Westport – the ones who settled there and didn’t move away. I thought that they were all small-town losers, missing out on what I thought life was about, but they’re all happy now and I’m not. So, I’m the one who got it wrong.’
‘Sounds to me like a bad person wouldn’t be sitting here confessing all of this to me in the hopes of being absolved,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it sounds like maybe you were a bit of a tosspot, but I think everyone has been someone they’re ashamed of at some point in their life. If you’re susceptible to peer pressure, it can force you into becoming someone you never anticipated yourself being – someone you don’t like.’
‘I bet no one’s ever peer-pressured you a day in your life.’ He chuckled. His eyes were filled with such affection as they caressed my face from afar, that I found I had a small lump lodged in my throat. I swallowed it down and heard the audible gulp as it fell away.
‘You’d be surprised.’ I thought back to the rides I’d been talked on to at theme parks, the nights out in my teen years when I’d wanted to go home, but had stayed out to appease someone else. The boy’s hands I’d let stray further than I was comfortable with because I didn’t want to be perceived as a prude. I thought of that one and only time I’d smoked a cigarette and then thrown up in a nearby bush when I found my mouth tasting like I’d just licked a barbecue. And I thought of Joel and all the times I’d let him pressure me into making decisions, into investing money in his business, into staying with him longer than I should have. Into rekindling long-dead flames that should have stayed extinguished.
‘I don’t think so.’ His eyes drifted down to my lips for a split second, before looking back up into my eyes. ‘I think you’re the most real person I’ve ever met.’
‘My mother’s brain is like this Aladdin’s cave of useless facts and fridge magnet metaphors and this one time she found me in her bedroom when I was only about twelve, slapping make-up all over my face and crying because some girls at school had called me ugly. She got a wipe and helped me get rid of the mess I’d made of myself. She said that pretending to be someone you aren’t was like wearing one of those big rubber Halloween masks. You can hide behind it for as long as you like, but eventually you’re going to get uncomfortable and you’ll need to take a breath and the only thing you can do in order to breathe, is take it off. If only she could see me now.’ I pointed to my rotting face.
‘Yer miss her a lot, don’t yer?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, my voice quiet. I was somewhat unnerved by how much sadness filled me up when I thought about her and it was happening more and more recently.
‘She sounds like one of those wise women, yer know, all knowin’ and whatnot.’ He frowned again, struggling, I think, to convey what he meant. After a moment, his frown unfurled and his eyebrows rose. ‘Like Rafiki.’
‘Rafiki?’ I laughed. ‘The mandrill from The Lion King.’
‘Isn’t he a baboon?’
‘Common mistake. But that’s a useless fact for another time.’ I batted away the mental detour. ‘Just promise me one thing, Charlie?’ I said, placing my hand on his arm, which lounged lazily on our shared armrest. ‘If you enjoy living, then please, never say that she reminds
you of Rafiki to her face.’
‘Noted.’ He chuckled. ‘So, does that mean I’m gonna be around long enough to meet her?’
I blushed, but didn’t look away. ‘If you behave yourself,’ I said through a smile.
There it was again, that intense look that filled his eyes and made my stomach feel like I’d swallowed hundreds of squirming little worms. The insanity of falling for someone was so ridiculous, so nonsensical and against all self-preservation instincts, that I wasn’t surprised that so many people sang and wrote and centred their lives on it.
I wondered if he felt what I felt. The rush of blood that whooshed in my ears and thundered in my temples and the prickling of anticipation on my skin.
I’d tried not to get pulled into it, but there had simply been nothing I could do. My heart was working independently to my head and logic no longer had a say in the matter of whether I could keep myself safe from falling in love with Charlie Stone. I thought about leaning over and kissing him, of finally knowing what it would feel like, after so many missed opportunities, to be that close to him. But just as I was moulding the thought in my brain, his expression changed from one of temptation to one of amused puzzlement.
‘What is it?’ I asked, confused and a little breathless.
‘It’s just … yer nose.’ He sniggered.
I frowned, lifted my phone to my face and turned on the forward-facing camera.
‘Oh God,’ I said, instantly holding up my hand to hide the fact that my latex nose was detaching itself from my face. ‘Can you fix it?’ I asked.
‘Let me see?’ he said through a suppressed laugh. I took my hand away and, as I did, there was a thud, followed by a rustling, as the glue completely disconnected and my fake nose dropped into the bucket of popcorn on my lap.
I pressed my lips together, hard, before looking back up to Charlie, whose fingers were now covering his mouth. I reached up and touched my sweaty, air-deprived nose, covered in tiny ribbons of dried glue, and before I could do anything to stop it, a chortle barged its way through my newly human nose. Charlie followed suit, laughing until tears filled his eyes. I fished out the nose and pressed it back to my face but the glue had all dried up.
At First Sight Page 11